 Hello everyone, my name is Julie Garden Robinson and I'm your host for today's field to fork webinar. It's our first one of the season and of course we had a blizzard day in North Dakota. This webinar series is brought to you by North Dakota State University Extension. This is actually the eighth year we have done this series and we're really glad you joined us today. We've archived all the previous webinars and the link is on the field to fork webinar page. This slide shows the upcoming webinars. So you get to learn about vegetables next week and then keeping your produce safe from home to market the following week. The next slide shows our webinar controls and because of our large number of participants, we invite you to post your questions and comments in the chat. So we're going to practice using the chat box. So go to your own screen and click on the little icon that looks like a chat and type your city and state. Where are you right now? Well, it's wonderful to see all of you from so many different states and cities. You can keep on typing. The next slide provides an acknowledgement. And I have a special request. This is one of my funded grants that I have. It's funded by the USDA's agricultural marketing service. And shortly after we have the webinar, you will receive a short online survey. It'll only take a couple minutes, but it's really important for us to continue to have grant funding. It's been going on for eight years now, and that really helps to have your feedback. And as a thank you after you do the survey, you will be taken to a prize portal and be sure to list your complete address. So your city, state, and zip code. Otherwise, we don't have a way to find you to send a prize if you happen to win. And next slide, please. I am pleased to introduce today's speaker first one in our series and it is Don Kinsler. Don is a native of Lisbon, North Dakota. He graduated from NDSU with a degree in horticulture. He and his wife operated a garden center in Fargo for 25 years. A lifelong gardener, Don is the extension agent for horticulture in Cass County. He writes two weekly newspaper gardening columns and has weekly radio programs on two stations during the growing season. He and his wife live in Fargo. Welcome Don, we're glad you're here. Thank you, Julie, and welcome to everyone. Well, by the end of the program today, we're going to take a look at how we can design a flower bed really, really nice. So it looks great, but also so that that same flower bed is going to help increase the production in our fruit, our fruit trees or fruit shrubs strawberries, raspberries, and also in our vegetable garden. So it's my pleasure today to talk about two aspects of gardening horticulture that I really enjoy. And one of those is flower gardening. The other is of course growing vegetables and fruits. So I get to talk about both of those and we're going to see how those mesh together so we can have the best of both of those worlds. Well, what does a well designed flower bed, possibly have to do with getting better produce, a better harvest out of our fruit trees and our vegetable garden. Well, it's all about pollination. So we think about well what exactly is pollination. So what it was this that we talked about well pollination is the transfer of pollen from the male part of a flower to the female part, and then after pollination, the, the female portion and that's where we get our fruit or seed, you know, etc. So pollination can occur within that same flower. As we see in this diagram, you see both the the male parts female part are in the same flower. Now on some flower types on some plant types, there are separate male and female flowers on the same plant. For example on these pumpkin flowers here. The male have the male pollen. Other flowers are female that have the ovary and of course that is what will develop into the fruit the pumpkin, etc. or an apple. So here we take a look at a photo of a, believe it's a pumpkin, or a pumpkin like squash that has been pollinated and that that fruit then is enlarging. And of course that's where we get our good garden produce. So all about pollination. And of course this pollination that we talk about is so important because interesting statistic. One of every three bites of food that we eat depends on a live pollinator. Now keyword there is live. So what do you mean by a live pollinator well there are different ways of, of achieving pollination. Okay one way is live by bees or other pollinators that we'll talk about the other way of pollination is by wind. Most grain crops like wheat barley oats are all pollinated by wind as the wind blows across our wheat fields that accomplishes the pollen, a pollination, resulting in the grain. So those fields are not dependent on live pollinators. So live pollinators. There's a variety of these, as you can see by the picture their butterflies as they flip between the flowers, they can achieve pollination. There are beetles, an assortment of flies. The pollinators that we're most concerned with on our fruits, vegetables, fruit trees are the bees. Now there's lots of different types of bees. There's the honey bees. There's the big bumble bees that we're so familiar with, and there are a lot of little native bees. So for most of our fruits, vegetables, it's a bees that are doing most of that. Now I want you to take a look at the picture here. Okay notice those different types of pollinators even hummingbirds will do pollination. Take a look and see what the structure that they are all on. What does that have in common? Well, they're pretty flowers, aren't they? And those pretty flowers, whether in a flower bed or in a vegetable garden or fruit orchard, those pretty flowers, if pollen gets transferred between the male and female, those flowers will develop into fruits and vegetables. And the fruits and vegetables pollinated by bees, these are some pretty important crops, are backyard apples, plums, strawberries, raspberries in the vegetable garden, cucumbers, melon, squash, pumpkin, zucchini. We can't live without our zucchini. Those all depend primarily on bees for the pollination. Notice also, of course, that they have flowers that are quite attractive. You know, flower apple blossoms are beautiful. Pumpkin and squash blossoms, those big bright yellow blossoms are very attractive too. So why in nature do plants and bees interact like this? Why don't they just each kind of do their own thing? Why did nature cause this cooperation between bees and plants? Well, nature's got a good thing going here. And it's advantageous to both the plants and the bees. For example, when plants get pollinated, the plants aren't so concerned about the fruit like the apple, whether it tastes good or whether it's bigger or red. But what the plants are concerned about is that seed inside the fruit, because it's that seed that will perpetuate the species. When that apple tree falls to the ground and that seed sprouts the next spring, that'll make a new apple tree. And so plants get pollinated as a self-preservation to perpetuate the species. So note the marigold seeds in the photo off to the right there, the upper right. That marigold's mission in life is to produce seed so it can perpetuate the species also. So plants are getting a kind of a life-preserving thing by getting pollinated by these bees. Okay, what do the bees get out of this relationship? Well, the bees get food, they get nectar pollen, feed the young and do nurse themselves. They also get shelter. We're going to talk about that shelter in just a little bit. So mother nature has a good thing going here between these these two flowers and the bees or other pollinators. So now ornamental flowers, flowers from flower beds, things that we think of ornamental. And the edible flowers are all on the same page. They're kind of after the same thing. They want to get pollinated so they'll produce fruit and seed. So what I'm getting at is if we can create a beautiful flower bed that will help attract bees into our whole area into our whole yard. It'll be good for the bees. It'll be good for the flowers and good for the vegetables or fruit. So now plants, whether it's ornamental flowers or the flowers of fruits or vegetables, they attract bees by offering the bees some rewards. And those rewards are pollen, nectar, fragrance, shelter, a gathering space for other bees. So the flowers are offering some some incentives for the bees to to come into the area. And while the bees are getting their rewards, they're transferring pollen between flowers. As I see what a nice relationship they have, they're both getting something out of this. Well, how do bees find these flowers? For example, bees don't go into a wheat field because there's there's not the same incentives for them to go there and wheat fields don't need the bees to be coming in. So how do bees find the flowers, either in a flower beds or the fruit and vegetable plantings? Well, there's a couple of things. Petal color. It's fascinating. There are lots of different kinds of bees and certain bees are attracted to different colors of flowers. So petal color is one way. Petal texture. Look at that beautiful bright yellow pumpkin flower. You can just feel the texture of that and bees can sense things like that. The scent of flowers. See, flowers didn't just originate and have some of these qualities just, you know, kind of willy-nilly. Nature gave these flowers certain characteristics to draw the bees in. Even ultraviolet light patterns as they kind of reflect off the flowers can be attractive to bees. And of course the nectar. Look at that bee in the, it's a selvia. Look at the bee with its head right up inside that flower getting the nectar. Even the temperature of flowers, you know, the flowers as they absorb sunlight, get warm and draw in honey bees and the humidity that gathers around the plant. So the more flower types in an area, both ornamental flowers and fruit, vegetable flowers, the more bees that are going to be coming into that area. And when we get more bee activity, more of the flowers are going to be pollinated. For example, have you ever in your cucumber patch? No discussion. There's lots of flowers, but I'm not getting any little cucumbers. Well, one cause of that can be that there's not enough bees to accomplish the pollination that's needed. So more bee activity, more flowers will get pollinated. And when more flowers get pollinated, you're going to get a heavier crop of vegetables. For example, the slide there shows the apple flowers. And of course, the more apple flowers get pollinated, you're going to get a nicer crop of apples. So if flower beds can help the vegetable garden and fruit crop, does it matter the type of flower bed or can we just plant flowers and that'll accomplish the mission. So it doesn't matter the type. And the answer, of course, is yes. So to draw more bees into our yard, into our garden, our fruit plantings, we could create a traditional pollinator garden. Now a pollinator garden is a garden designed specifically to have as many plant types that are known to be attracted, attractive to bees. So we could do that. Now many of these pollinator gardens are specially designed with types well known. For example, many of them are native plant species that evolved at the same time that the bees were evolving so bees are comfortable around many of the native plants. So that works out quite well. But many of us have a more traditional flower garden. We've got flower gardens with with peonies and iris and day lilies. We don't all we don't always have native plants in our traditional flower gardens. So, and maybe you're developing a new flower garden, and maybe you opt not to just do all pollinators maybe you want kind of a traditional flower garden too. What we're going to look at is we can have the both of best of both worlds we can attract the bees into our flower garden by incorporating some of this idea so that's what we're going to talk about. So what are the characteristics in a flower bed that are needed to get the bees to come in well there are some specific things. First of all, different flower shapes, sizes, colors, now flower shapes, some types of bees have mouth parts that are made for going inside a tube shaped flower. Other bees need a flat flower. So different flower shapes, sizes, different colors, different colors of flowers will attract different types of bees. A good flower bed that tracks bees should have different types like that and groupings of plants in a sunny location because bees like sunshine. And so it's important to have flower bed, especially in a sunny area to attract bees. Oh, very important. We need to have something in the flower bed blooming from spring through fall. See if all flowers are blooming just in the middle of summer. Well, that's fine. But bees aren't going to be attracted as much to that location, because they'll go somewhere where they can have good eating in the spring summer fall, and we'll even talk about winter. So something blooming from spring all the way through fall very important for pollinators. Now let's let's leave the bees behind a little bit. Let's talk about the things if we're going to design a beautiful flower garden that would make the pages of better homes and gardens. Let's talk about some of those principles of a well designed flower garden. And then we're going to see kind of how we can incorporate the bee attractiveness into these well designs. Okay, well designed flower gardens should have something going on each of the four seasons so that when you go out into our backyard or front yard. It's pretty at all seasons. In the spring of the year. Oh, it's fine and spring is going to be beautiful again. And we want flowers blooming as quickly as we can so we can enjoy it. Also think about the bees in the spring of the year may when flowers in our flower garden are blooming, what's going on in fruit plantings that bees can go pollinate well apples. See if we can create lots of good home for bees, good nectar good etc pollen for bees. It's more likely than to go to our backyard apple tree and pollinate that so very important to have things going on in the spring and of course the summer. We want plenty of activity in the flower bed for bees in the middle of summer because then they'll go visit our cucumber plants that are flowering in the middle of summer and our squash, our zucchini melons and all of the things that that are needed for bees to pollinate. Now in the fall of the year, the fall of the year there aren't many fruits or vegetables that are blooming that need bees to visit them, but it's very important in the flower bed that we in the fall flower bed that we provide blooming material so that bees can nourish themselves feed their young at that time of year, plus in the fall of the year from a design standpoint, we want the the fall flower bed to be pretty too fall is a beautiful time of the year and the way that the sunlight plays off of those that beautiful perennial flower bed on winter. Okay, we're in the middle of a blizzard today or yesterday, but winter can actually be beautiful. Look at how nice that those the the old plant parts the grass the the even the browns look at how pretty though that is against the snow. It's very important for bees also so this isn't just about looks in the wintertime for bees and other pollinators, they can make their home, their nesting home in those hollow stems. So we see this in the same way that choosing material for the four seasons makes look nice for us for appreciating a flower bed that also gives the bees something to enjoy also so very important. Graceful sweeping curves always look nice in a perennial flower bed, the bees probably don't care so much about this but from a design standpoint that does really look nice in a flower bed. A variety of flower types for texture and interest. Now when you look at a perennial flower bed or annual flower bed. If you combine the different flower types, you get a little bit of dynamic energy going on it just looks nice rather than having everything all the same level, you get a little bit of activity going on there just from look so good design standpoint. Do you remember how when we were discussing what bees need in the flower bed, we discussed how they want different flower shapes and types. Well here, by designing it nicely, we're also accommodating what the bees want. See there's some different types of flowers there depending on what type of be it is there's a little something for everyone in there. And a well designed flower garden should have ornamental grasses and maybe some shrubs ornamental grasses just gives such nice texture and a little bit of movement in the wind. And again, they're going to create some hollow stems in which those bees can nest. So we've got a win win situation here these things look nice in the flower bed, but also are very important for our bees shrubs, adding shrubs to the flower garden. It's a good choice. Some of the flowering type shrubs are great be magnets and in a flower bed planting and odd numbers of 357 rather than a blocky, even square type. If you plan an odd numbers 357 that just looks a little more natural. Now the bees probably don't care so much about this, but it'll look nice from our aspect. Then using larger groupings of flowers and repeating the groups now this is a very large perennial garden but we can do this in a smaller scale in our own yards as well. So instead of just planting one group of the flocks. Put multiple groups so that when those are blooming the entire flower bed will look nice and then the bees also will have more to travel to so repeating the groups throughout the flower bed. Assorted heights is a good design principle as well from these standpoint using a sorted heights gives a little bit of shelter maybe a little bit of wind protection for the bees to go in between so it's a good point to for the bees. Now assorted heights in a flower bed. Notice the way that that pink flocks we've brought that forward. A person doesn't need to keep all the tall growing material in the back and then the mid things that next and then the small in the front that can look just a little bit less random and not quite as energetic. Instead, bring some of those taller materials of taller plants forward a little bit. Now we're not going to hide short things behind it. But again, use some create some dynamic energy by bringing some of those taller types to the forefront a little bit. Now in a good flower bed, whether it's just for our own looks or whether we want to attract bees in, we should create a foundation of long lived perennials. Now perennial flowers come in a couple of different kind of categories. Some are very long lived like a peony can stay in place for 100 years or more. Iris long live flocks lilies day lilies. These are good staples for the flower garden. We are going to carry you through year in and year out. And then we can add some of the types are a little shorter live they're very valuable, such as the cone flower echinacea over on the left hand side. Those are very important for pollinators and the monarda down in the middle, the lower middle photo and choreopsis up in the upper right the yellow. They're very important pollinator type species. They don't last as long as like peonies they're not going to stay in place for 100 years. Maybe those we need to replace every four, five years, six years, but that's okay. It allows you to change up your flower bed a little bit. So in addition to the long, long live type that'll make a skeleton, kind of a good bones skeleton in your flower bed, add these add these shorter lived and then also add some of the native type plants in as well that we know are attractive. Now here's an important one space plants for their mature footprint. For example, a peony is going to take a certain footprint it'll tell you that on the tag so we need to give that about a good at least three foot round. You know those plants look so cute when they're small don't at the garden center and pretty soon things are too crowded and too crowded means they're oftentimes out competing each other so very important to do a little bit of investigating on the plant tag and see how much space do I need to give each of those, so that they will do their best and plants that do their best will bloom better, of course more blooms, we get more bees coming on in. We have a well designed flower garden we can add ground covers creeping junipers always look nice the evergreen shrubs look those beautiful Annabelle hydrangeas know and the bees love them. So can't you just view that I can I can almost see the bees in that area right now. So we don't have to just use flowers we can do shrubs and ground covers. So finding a flower bed. We can look beyond just the flowers there's other things going on. There's fruits. There's foliage. There's buds there's form there's texture. And so there's a lot more going on than just blossoms and sometimes you think well what does that have to do with bees well, for example on the lower right hand side there some of the ornamental grasses that give such good texture. Those again have the nice hollow stems that can make nesting material for bees in the fall and winter and containers do so well in a flower bed we can add a pop of color like those coleus, or in the lower left hand corner we can add the begonias doesn't I give a nice pop of color to that flower bed. So the combination of annuals and perennials makes a pleasing combination that looks good, but here's a key. Many of these annual flowers are be magnets. The red shorn zinnias the yellow marigolds one of my favorite flowers here the blue victorious salvia just be magnets so incorporating annual flowers into the perennial flower bed gives a good look and attracts bees very well. Now one thing I love about gardening working with all things gardening whether it's fruit growing vegetables flower gardening. It teaches us patience patience is a must you know peonies. From the time you plant it can take five years until that establishes a really good massive peony that's blooming well boy and just I can almost smell them from here and those bees will be there shortly. And but that peony is probably going to last for 100 years so patience as we're developing these. Now a graceful sweep of lawn is always a nice counterbalance to a flower bed and lawn also can be a spot where bees it gives kind of a cooling effect. So on a hot summer days that adds some cooling to the entire area and now here's the concept. How about us adding some clover some white clover into that lawn on the bees are going to love that even more. So I'm a big advocate of adding some white clover to our lawns natural mulch instead of rock mulch which just gets so hot and is so unnatural around flowers and vegetables rock just gets hot. If I were be I wouldn't want to mingle around a hot rock area like that so instead of rock mulch shredded bark or other natural type mulches are so nature friendly, some of the bees will even do a little bit of ground nesting in those materials. One of my favorite designers of landscapes and flower beds is a Dutch designer world famous called Pete Audolf and shown there is one of the landscapes flower gardens that he designed, and he is very much in tune to pollinators also. So he likes to figure 30% of the plants to be blooming for springtime, then about 40% of the plants for summertime, and then about 25% in the fall and again we need things blooming in the fall of the year, so that there's going to be some good, good material for the bees that time of year as well. This is another one of his famous designs notice how he's planted the materials kind of in hazy swaths, he's repeated the material kind of throughout so it's just very pleasing. And again we can work in natives into that, or other types of perennials and annuals that bees are going to love. So this is just passed through a perennial garden now sometimes the the lawn can be the path. Now this isn't maybe so important to the bees to have a walking path through, but it's important to us. I love walking along the flower garden and watching the bees and just being part of that flower bed and when I know my flower garden has lots of bees. So joining vegetable garden is going to benefit from it as well. Now here's a concept that landscaper Pete Odolf really impressed on me to we need to learn to love the Browns of autumn. Look, look how pretty that is. So we think of autumn is kind of the end of the growing season, but not not really those beautiful Browns are gorgeous in themselves in a flower garden, but also those look at all the hollow stems in there that the bees, especially the native bees that are going to winter in those. There's a lot of good nesting material. And of course winter is beautiful in a well designed flower garden. We put material that is going to stay there during the winters that when we're looking out our picture window out to the into the yard will see beauty like this. So let's talk a little bit about how to manage a flower garden so that we can really be be friendly. Some of the things that we should do in our flower gardens. First is to give a water source. Our summers can be really, really hot and really, really dry with not a lot of water puddles sitting around. So, giving the bees a water source, kind of a shallow container is shown here, and the bees need something to land on, rather than just the open water. So by putting pebbles in or some sticks, something that the bees can land on and congregate so that they can make use of that water better. Keeping flowers deadheaded as the flowers wither. It's important to remove those before the seed pod enlarges. Otherwise, that seed is going to take energy from the plant. And so as soon as the flower withers, we should deadhead, not just taking away the the little yellow flower flowers there, but take away that whole a developing seed pod. And what that will do is that will help the flowers to produce new flowers and new flowers mean you'll have more be activity continuing to come in. So no matter what type of flower it is, do deadheading on it to keep them blooming well and to keep the bees coming limit pesticide use. My wife and I enjoy big flower beds, and we use no insecticides at all in our perennial and annual flower beds just because there aren't many insects that really attack those flowers. In the vegetable garden, which also has flowers blooming, you know squash squash flowers pumpkin flowers cucumbers, there are bad insects that the damaging insects that are also around there. And so if we don't control some of those we can lose the crop to that. So we need to use our insecticides in the vegetable garden, very judiciously and I believe one of the programs. that are down in the line in weeks to come will address use of pesticides and insecticides. One thing a person can do is when you need to apply insecticides in the vegetable garden is to do it in the evening after sunset, so that the bees are not flying that time of day. That's a simple thing and then if we use some safer type chemicals that are less known to be toxic to bees very important. Another thing we can do in our flower beds as mentioned before is to mulch that soil with a good organic type mulch natural type mulch such such as shredded bark or compost. Leaving the tops on over winter the tops in our flower bed. Now someday I'm going to write a book about garden terminology, you know the top of a building is way at the top of a building. The top tops of a perennial means everything from ground level on up those are the tops of a perennial. And the tops should be left on over winter on most of our perennials the reason for that is, well, it's better for the perennials because they'll catch snow and they'll survive winter better. It's better for the bees because they can nest in those hollow stems, and then the following spring, those tops can be cut off now there are a few types of perennial flowers that where you should remove the tops in the fall of the year, such as peonies because peonies, hosta, daylilies, iris totally turn to mush after a few frosts so yes before or about the time of frost cut those off dispose of them. So now on the tops that we leave on over winter. And the following spring at a certain point we need to cut those off, because in late April or early May, the new growth of perennials is going to start coming up out of the ground. And if you've ever grown those grown perennials like that, if the new growth starts growing up amongst those dead twigs it's hard to cut off the dead twigs without injuring the new growth. But there might still be some bees active in those stems if we cut them off too early and dispose. So an entomologist once told me well we can have a happy medium cut those perennial tops off when you need to which is probably in April, but there might still be some bees in those stems, but instead of throwing them out in the landfill. Take those perennial tops, put them out behind the garage, or on top of the compost that you're not going to turn in yet but give those bees a chance to escape, which is probably when the warmer weather comes maybe in May or so. Now I've mentioned a few times of specific plants that bees are known to love, such as perennials or different annuals that bees really love. Now, both native types, as well as some of our cultivated type things like P&As, zinnias, things like that. Here's a wonderful reference. Now that link is awfully long to write down, but if you do a search for NDSU building a pollinator gardening or NDSU beautiful landscapes, building a pollinator garden, it should take you to this PDF and it's a wonderful fairly long source. It describes all these different types of bees that I mentioned, and it goes through all the different types of perennial flowers that will attract bees, all the annual flowers so a really good resource to follow up with. Now the mission is accomplished today. We looked at designing a flower bed that's really going to look great with all the traditional garden principles that are going to make it look great, and we've used that to draw more bees into our yard. So we're going to get better raspberry crop, we're going to get more cucumbers, our squash will get pollinated, so we've accomplished the mission by doing the best of both worlds. And if you have any questions at all, feel free to jot down my email address. I'm happy to answer any questions about gardening. And again, thank you very much for joining. Thank you, Julie. Well, you have a lot of questions that came in. So I'm going to do the one by one in the order that they arrived. So our first question. Does a flowering crab apple tree that does not bear fruit provide nutrition for pollinators. It does. Even though they are sterile, the flowering crab apples that that won't go on to produce fruit. Nature has imbued them with those same beautiful flowers and pollen. So they do, they do provide nutrition for the bees as well. Very good. And thank you by the way for this beautiful talk I loved your pictures. How can you tell if your plants have not been pollinated and what can you do about it. So let's talk cucumbers. Okay, if if the flowers drop off, and you don't see any little cucumber, well then something went wrong. So could be a couple of things. The flowers of that family squash pumpkins melons. Those have separate male separate female flowers. The earliest blossoms that are formed are oftentimes the male blossoms that just produce pollen. So they're going to fall off and there will be no little cucumbers. Eventually, then the female blossoms start being formed also then you get the cross pollination. So sometimes the females need to kind of start bearing female flowers, if you follow me so then there will be pollination so it can be that they're just aren't female blossoms yet. But also, bees are fairly particular their self protective they're going to come on coming into the flower garden, or the vegetable garden, when it's too hot, when it's rainy cloudy to cool. And so conditions have to be just right for the bees to be there and and get pollinated. You know if things have gone well when that flower results in an enlarged fruit. One way you might ask you okay how in a cucumber plant or a squash pumpkin. How do you know which are the male which are female well the female blossoms have a little for a little miniature fruit at the base of that yellow flower. And so you'll know when pollination has occurred when those little miniatures start to enlarge. Very good. What do you think about bug hotels or other uses of natural materials to act as safe havens for bees and other insects for for a more immediate impact rather than perennial gardens or grasses that can take several years to establish. That's a good point. What can we do kind of immediate because I mentioned patients patients as virtue, but what what we do in the meantime to get more bees into our flower into our vegetables and our fruit. Well be houses are a great idea. And next I present this I'm going to add a slide for that Mason be houses a person can look up how to create these and they aren't difficult creating these be houses that will provide shelter for those bees. So we can do those immediately the same year that you plant your vegetable garden. Very good. Here's another person who says they live in a wooded area and they have deer. They spray a deer deterrent on the flowers to keep deer from eating them. Well that also deter bees from pollinating the deterrent I use as chemical free. Okay, a lot of the deer repellents or deer repellents work on a couple of different kind of parameters. And many of them are sent base they create sent that the deer don't like when applying those to a flower bed, I like to apply the, the deer deterrence on the parameters, you don't necessarily need to put those right on the flowers. So remember one of the things that we talked about where bees are attracted to flowers are by the scent. And so, if we keep the deer repellents on kind of the parameters either perimeter of the flower bed or at least on the perimeter of the plant so it's not directly on on the flower. Good. I'm new to gardening. Are there any books you would recommend for garden planning and when do you start your plants indoors. When do you start plants indoors depends on the type of plants and my wife Mary and I love to start almost all our plants in the our basement under lights. And so it depends on the type of plant. Okay, common types that we would be seeding. Okay, peppers are March 15. Okay, tomatoes are April 1. Marigolds would be March 15. Oftentimes we start things too early and they languish indoors they get leggy, there's not enough light they get too big, and they're just not prime condition for mid to late May planting. So, those are a couple of key ones. Tomatoes, April 1 peppers, March 15 and Marigolds and many of the flowers about March 15. Let's see what was the other part of that question. They're looking for recommendations for books. Oh, for books. One of the books from our neighbors in Winnipeg that's a wonderful series it's a not created by a nonprofit in Manitoba, called the Prairie Garden, the Prairie Garden, a wonderful series of books. They're on their site, and they aren't expensive. They're kind of a paperback book. That's a great resource on many different topics you can eat each year they do a different topic. And there are some very good things. The current year's book is dealing with climate and there are some pollinator type articles in that as well the Prairie Garden out of Winnipeg Manitoba. Right. Well, they keep coming down. In addition to specific flower colors attracting specific bees, which plants are known as universal attractors. Would a butterfly bush qualify as one. Would a butterfly bush. Let's see now that I wonder if that's coming from that question might be coming from a person in different a different part of the country outside of our zone butterfly bush. Well, there's different things nicknamed butterfly bush one of those is Budlia, which is not in our the zone in which Fargo is located zone for that's probably more like a zone five or so. Depending on what we're calling the butterfly bush we'd have you'd have to kind of investigate whether that's hard enough for your zone. Also, when I mentioned when to start those plants in the previous question when to start those plants. It is definitely going to depend where in the country where in the United States you're looking at. If you're in a an area where generally you'd be planting things flowers vegetables out in the garden from about mid May to the end of May. Those are the dates that I mentioned. If you're in the warmer part of the country, where are your frost free date is maybe the end of April. Then of course you need to start them earlier. The next question that popped in. If some flowers are better to attract pollinators than others. What is the best way to look at my existing flower beds to know what to add or change. Yeah, that that PDF, beautiful landscapes that PDF that I mentioned, and I can back up to that a little bit to that's a wonderful resource, building a pollinator garden that's a very detailed that gives generous lists of the best. And let's see one part of a previous question was, are there some universal, are there some universal flowers. And that's one reason for adding annual flowers in annual flowers are wonderful. I think universal type pollinators, but also, there are in that reference that I mentioned, there are some pollinators plants that are recommended for more widespread. Did did I answer those couple of questions Julie, or did I leave something unanswered. I think you did. You're doing great. Over the years I found out that the plant tag for sizing is not always right. Is there a more reliable source for this information. Yes, now that that that is a good point because the plants don't always read the tag. And so yeah, that that is that is a concern. And the tag or it might not hurt to cross reference that with going online and investigating that but sometimes we don't always have time. So that's where experience kind of comes in. When a person makes that mistake. That mistake is more critical if it's a spruce tree that you're planting right next to the house foundation and then 30 years later it's crowding perennials perennials we can move around a bit if they get too crowded we can move them trees and the shrubs are much more difficult, of course. And so we do the best we can by looking at the plant tag or a catalog, and going with there and then but experiences the best teacher. So once we plant something to close, if it's an annual or perennial then we'll kind of know to move it. Right. Here's the next question, how long do perennial stems need to be kept for the bees before you clean up in the spring. How long should the perennial stems be kept kind of in your vicinity in the yard, at least, at least probably until the end of May or first of June. Now that would be a good question to pose to an entomologist which I did once. And that's when he said, you know, don't, don't clean up your flower bed in the spring and dispose of all these leave them on the premises. And when I asked, he said, most bees probably have exited those stems. He indicated late May into early June. Now I guess I'd maybe err on the side of caution. And if you've gotten tucked to, you know, behind the garage so they aren't annoying anybody then maybe maybe leave them till mid June, till the weather has warmed well. Okay. In the fall, should we stop deadheading to save seeds for winter animals like birds and squirrels? Yes. Once that you know that flowers are no longer going to be coming forth more. If we know that deadheading isn't going to help bring more flowers on, then yes, let the last of the flowers ripen. And that's a great point because those seed heads left on over winter, gosh, they're birds that come in and that just helps wildlife also. And so good, good point to leave the seeds on at a certain point late in the fall. I like that idea. The next question is about mulch. Is there a type of mulch or wood chips that stay in place better that don't blow away? Those that blow and drift in the rain seem to be the bark chunks. The, and that's why I mentioned shredded bark or shredded wood. Shredded bark, which is what my wife Mary and I use on all of our perennial beds, that meshes together much better. And so the shredded type product doesn't usually blow. The bark chunks are notorious, you know, kind of wood chunks. Those are notorious for blowing around and ending up on the lawn where you're trying to mow with a lawn mower. And what about climatis? Should we leave those to overwinter? Yes, I think it's a good idea. It seems to help the climatis. It helps catch a little more snow. And so the tops, the old dead tops on the climatis, I like to leave ours on and then clean it up in the spring. I don't know that there's probably much nesting of bees, although it'd be interesting to ask an entomologist. I don't know that for sure that bees don't nest there. But usually at some point in April when you're getting things cleaned up, then the climatis finds can be taken off. At that point, they're nice and crunchy and dry, and they'll come off the trellis better as well. What are some examples of native plants that bees love? That's a good question. I probably, to kind of jog my memory better, because I'm not as familiar with native species as I am or cultivated. Horticulture is kind of the study of the culture of plants, and so I'm not as familiar with some of these natives. What I, when I'm asked that question, I refer to the handbook there. And so I'm sorry I can't maybe rattle off some of those natives. Certainly, maybe we can even post that on the Field of Fort website. Yeah, I think that would be great, because the list is extensive and very well done. Yes. Here's the next question. So peonies and hostas should have the tops cleaned off before winter? Peonies and what was the other one? Hostas. Yes, peonies, because peonies are notorious for having a mildew, the grape powdery mildew, and that can carry over from winter through winter to the next year and then re-infect if we leave those tops on. So for sanitation, the tops are better cut off and disposed of off the premises. And hosta, daylilise, and iris, after the first couple of frosts, they just turn to such mush. And by next spring, they're very difficult to remove. And also they don't provide much winter nesting for our bees. So in the fall of the year after a frost or so, then they're easier removed than they are the following spring. All right. Will your flower bed draw pollinators away from your vegetable garden? Do they need to be in a certain proximity to each other? Bees can travel for a long, long, long time. It's best if they don't have to travel that far. But like an isolated farmstead that has an apple tree without a whole lot going on, you know, bees can fly for a mile, maybe more. But if we have more of these flowers, both ornamental and fruit, vegetable, consolidated one area, the bees are much more likely to stay there. They don't need to go travel if they got good stuff right in that same area. So now interesting question. Will the bees hang out in your flower garden and not go to the vegetable garden? And no. The phrase busy as a bee is a good one. Those bees love to travel. And there's a variety of different nectars and pollins on each of these different species of plants. So bees will go wrong and visit many, many different types of things when they're blooming. So it's a wonderful cooperation between flower gardens and vegetable and fruit. Well, we're not going to get to every question. So maybe Don, I'll have you. We could do the lightning round if you wanted a few more. Yeah, we'll do a few more. If you want to put your contact information and I'll keep reading questions. The next one I grabbed from either the Q&A or the chat. Can bee houses be in the shade? Can bee houses be in the shade? The bees do like protection. They don't like it hot, hot. Of course, the flowers that they travel to are mostly in the sun. That's why on a cloudy day, your cucumbers don't get pollinated as well because the bees like to be in the sun, but they don't also like hot, don't like to be living in hot intensity. So one important thing to look at, whatever the instruction is for that bee house that you're going to build, make sure that you look at for that structure, where do they recommend? Because different structures will have different insulating materials that it's being built of. So make sure that the website that you use to build your bee house, make sure that it says where to locate that, whether it should be located a little bit of shade or, you know, if you follow me. So it depends on the type of material that is being used as to how hot it would get in the intense summer heat. So that could be in the sun depending on the material or a little bit of a protected filtered sun. Or some of the materials, if they get too hot, maybe the directions would indicate to put it in a more shaded area. Okay, here is a participant who says they had a friend who had vigorous cucumber plants with many flowers last summer but got very few cucumbers. And he'd been very successful in previous years. Any ideas on what would have happened? Yeah, sometimes the bees just, you know, it can be too hot, too cold, not sunny enough. But other things too, that pollen is, pollen is itself is a little finicky. The bees could be carrying it around, but pollen has a temperature threshold in which it's good and viable. And if it's been too cool, too hot, the pollen itself might not be good. So as long as your plants are healthy, there's not a whole lot you can do. Sometimes we're at the mercy of mother nature and the weather. No matter what else we do, there's some of those aspects beyond our control. Great, well, we'll do three more questions. And then you all have Don's contact information. And Don, you're going to be a busy guy. Please contact me. Are there certain flowers that can serve as trap crops for cucumber beetles? Trap crops for cucumber beetles. I believe Janet Kanotl, the NDSU entomologist, is on one of the programs farther down the line, I bet, isn't she, Julie? And so that's probably an entomologist question. A trap flower for cucumber beetles. Yeah, I'm not positive. That's probably an entomologist question. And then we have another one. What is a good shrub for north side of the house? A good shrub for north side of the house. And also, there'll be a bee type plant. And that are the hydrangeas. Hydrangeas are beautiful. The Annibal type with the big white flowers. And there's a few new hybrids as well. So hydrangeas would be well. And they get a little bit of sun in the morning and afternoon. So the bees, when they're in the sun, sunny time of day on the north side even, they'll also do for bees. In the north side house, dogwoods do well too. And dogwoods do have a flower, not the showiest, but bees will travel on those as well. So you had two very similar questions. So I'm going to pose this one. And this will be our last question for today. How close do your flowers need to be to your vegetable beds? And if they're in the same half acre, is that close enough? In the same half acre, yes. Yep, they are. You know, if it's a typical urban lot, I mean that's great. If it's a larger lot on a half an acre, that's fine. Bees, like I say, bees will travel a mile if they have to to get different sources of pollen and nectar. But if it's in a half an acre lot, yes, your vegetables, flowers within that half an acre, the bees are going to love it. Very good. It's three o'clock on the hour. And I just want to thank you, Don, for a wonderful talk. It's a great talk to hear on a snowy day in the Midwest. So thank you very much. It's been my pleasure. Thanks everyone for joining us today.