 Last speaker, we saved an outstanding speaker for the end. You're going to love them. OK, Todd, first we had the American Elm in North Dakota. Then we decided it had promised we went with the Green Ash. Great tree. Then that darn Emerald Ash border. Not here yet. Not here yet. And let's hope it stays away. But we are getting prepared for it. So we planted your favorite tree, the Autumn Blaze, Freeman Maple. And now it looks like we've got a couple of prongs with that already coming on. And so we're going to learn about some other alternatives now. So Todd is our woody plant specialist at NDSU. He's going to talk to us about woody plant diversity and why it's important and what we can do about it. So let's welcome Todd to the forums. All right. Well, thank you for having me here tonight. Because really the message I want to give is not just simply, what's the perfect tree? Because that's always the question, what should I plant? And I'm not going to answer any of those questions from anyone tonight. What can I plant? So if you have that question now, anywhere in the state, I will not answer that. Because the question or the topic for tonight is diversity. That's what it's about. So what is diversity? And diversity comes in many different forms. And it relates to genetic material, so the genetics. That's what diversity is really about. If you look around in this room or in any room or just think of your family or friends in general, none of us look the same unless you're an identical twin. There you have no genetic diversity. But we're all different. We all catch colds at different times. We get different diseases, et cetera. We're immune to different things. We're susceptible to others. That's because of genetic diversity. The same with trees, same with shrubs, same with any plant. And that's why we need to have diversity. So we're gonna talk about families. We're gonna talk about species, even clones. And that's where our cultivars come in as clones. That's where we have the big issue is that we are getting things less diverse. So now we're preaching diversity more. Diversity of tree locations. Also, how concentrated are the trees? How close are they? Elm is a great example. Great tree. Perfect tree, until we had Dutch Elm disease. The problem with Dutch Elm was that it had a beetle that would move the fungus. But what happened is that because the trees are on the boulevard, they root graft together. That's the prime way that on a boulevard that the disease moves. It's not by the beetle, by the vector, it's by the plant itself. So location has a big play in it, too. So ranging from streets to squares, private gardens, parks, church yards, and we have to have diversity. The problem that we come into, we like what our neighbor has. That whole, hey, we'll go back to the previous talk. The grass is always greener. And that's what we like. We like to see that fall color. My neighbor has this beautiful fall of color tree. I want it, too, and that's a really bad idea. Diversity also writes a wide range of interactions between urban residents and trees as well. And this goes with that neighbor effect. Is that we see something we like, we go to the nurseries. Do you ask the nurseries, why do you sell what you sell? And, well, why do you stop what you have? They say because it sells. And that's the issue, you know, is that itself. So diversity issues. This is what we have to deal with. Deficiency of a daft, a winter hardy, pest resistant, woody plants suitable for park or a recreational landscape use in North Dakota. We all know what's going on here. We have hardiness issues. We have soil issues. We have a lot of issues here in North Dakota. We are not the most prime location to be growing trees and shrubs. But there's a lot of great things that we can grow. Much of the current stock commercially available is not suited for us. If you look at the demographic region across the US, it's all about marketing. It's all about making money. Nurseries are not here just to find joy. They're to make money. And the majority of the United States lives into that zone six to zone eight, not zone three and four. And so my job is very difficult. We come up with new plants all the time. But getting a commercial nursery to produce them is very difficult because the market share is very small for zone three and four. Fortunately for a lot of the nurses here in the US, they discovered that there is a whole country that lives north of us. And so they're starting to get into this other market. Pretty amazing. So we need to increase plant diversity in response to disease and insect issues. We're gonna talk about a couple of them. I know some of the talks have related to these issues, Emerald Ash borer, et cetera. Planting and cultural limitations often leads to monoculture planting. Tom talked about elm. We had issues with elm, so we went then with ash. Ash is a great tree. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a perfect tree. It grows really well in the nursery. It establishes quick in planting, grows really fast, had no really problems with disease and insects overall. But obviously now we have a major one. So trees that perform well, that's what we use. Elm, ash, maple. You know, we are seeing a lot more diversity. I give credit to the city foresters here in North Dakota because they are very proactive. They're taking this seriously, especially with the Emerald Ash borer. So it's a very good thing. But they're planted in high percentages. If you go around Fargo here, you can see whole boulevards of elm. You can see whole boulevards now of ash. And now we're getting into the autumn blaze. Not so much on the boulevards, but more into the yard. So now we have caused the monoculture planting because you want that beautiful fall color, that red fall color. But each have disease and pest issues. So what we want to talk about is diversity guidelines. And this is what the city foresters are using. And we need to start adopting this as well in our personal homes and businesses, et cetera. A family. So here we got Betulacy as the example, Birch family. No more than 20% in a community of a single family. Because with the family, that's where diseases and insects generally will cross the boundaries. They're not gonna stick with just Birch per se. And so trying to get the diverse at a higher level, the family level will really help with this issue. No more than 10% of a genus within a family. Now, what is a genus? So a genus is a smaller group within that family of a plant. So here we mentioned the Birch family, Betulapia. We have Birch, Betula, we have Alder, all this, American Hornbeam, Carpinus, American Hophornbeam, Austria. All of those are genera within a family. So they're fairly close related. They have a lot of similar traits. They can also have some of the similar disease and insect issues. Not all. But then finally, no more than 5% of a species. This is pretty hard to do. So example then within a species would be Paper Birch. We don't wanna have more than 5% of Paper Birch in an area. And if you look at some of the issues, like what we have in Fargo, I just talked to our city forester a week or two ago. And so where are we at with Green Ash? In Fargo, 38% of a single genus and species of a tree. So 5%, 38%. It's coming down, but we got a long way to go. Guidelines are not even followed even to this day. I was working with the Williston City Forester and he was telling me about, obviously with the oil boom that we have, a park was planted with 100% Green Ash. Real smart. We all know that emerald ash borer is right on the edge. And the reason they did it is because cheap trees, they're really cheap. But they establish well, they'll do great out there. But then when emerald ash borer comes, because it's not a matter of if it's when and clearly we know it's gonna come, but we have to prepare for it. Are they preparing for diversity? No, not at all. I like to use the look around rule. This isn't really applicable necessarily for a city forester, but this is absolute for all of us across the state. If you're gonna be putting a tree in your yard or out front, look around. If somebody already has an autumn blaze next door, don't put one in. Somebody already has a birch, don't put one in. Somebody has a linden, don't put it in. Pick something else that somebody doesn't have in your immediate area. Because then when that disease or the insect comes in, it may or may not affect them in your tree. So some of the issues, emerald ash borer, I think there was already talks on that. And it's amazing how fast. It's basically been 13 years, and it has killed lots of trees. Suffered in Detroit, Michigan, in seven years, made it all the way to Minnesota. And if you look at how emerald ash borer travels, if you overlay the interstate system on the prime regions of where it is, that's where you find the most infestations. It's a really intelligent insect that it can travel the interstate. And unfortunately, here in Fargo, we have two of them. So that insect should be able to find Fargo pretty easy. I'm joking. The prime way that emerald ash borer moves is through humans, through moving firewood. And I always tell people it's good that we don't have really any issues with firewood, but this is a picture in, I believe, Ohio. Typical what you see after emerald or after Dutch Elm disease came through, destroyed the Elm, ash came in, no problem. Great landscaping tree, 100% down the Boulevard. And when emerald ash borer moves in, usually about two seasons and the tree is dead. And so this is all that's left to do. It's cut, thump grind, firewood. But don't move the firewood. This is the current map of where it's located. And so if you think it started in Michigan and spread out from there, from 2002, it currently is in the Twin Cities. That's the closest it is to us. We are being very proactive. Unfortunately, I heard the other day of even somebody in Fargo who's having their trees injected. You can inject trees with insecticide to kill the insect, but you're wasting your money. It's not here. And so why would you have your trees injected? Because with the injection, you are actually wounding the tree and you're actually gonna cause other problems. Other disease now can get in. So there's no reason to until it's actually confirmed. But I was looking at the Twin Cities and for us, it's not really gonna be too much of an issue into North Dakota because the big issue is moving to firewood. And there's no reason that firewood would go from the Twin Cities through Lake Region into North Dakota. Wait, maybe it will. So a lot of issues. This is a before and after shot. Top is the canopy cover with ash. The bottom is what happened after Emerald Ash born moved in. Lose a lot of canopy cover. And people don't think about the benefits of trees. So now you have more noise. You have more water runoff. You have more pollution. You have hotter temperatures. All these negative things come in with a canopy that we don't think about in our communities. Asian Longhorn Beetle. This is right on our doorstep as well. A lot of people haven't talked about this. It infest maple, buckeye, willow, elm, birch, hackberry, ash, poplar, and mountain ash. Fortunately for us, we don't plant with many of those. But wait, we plant all of those. And it was discovered in Minnesota in 2013. Dutch Elm Disease is one that we've heard a lot about. So we don't need to really talk about that. But there are ways that we can prevent here on campus. They do inject the trees with a fungicide to prevent them from succumbing to that disease. Other communities such even, and I use Fargo as the example because it's in my backyard here or right here, is that they decided very early on that they would not treat the trees and they were gonna go with more diversity. So as the tree gets it, it's removed, a new one is planted. And unfortunately, it destroys a lot of the communities because that nice perfect cathedral look across a boulevard or through a main street is gone and it will never come back. Our spruce needle cast disease. So this is a big one. Everybody loves the blue spruce. Colorado blue spruce. The most susceptible to needle cast and guarantee they'll all get it at some point in their life unless they're sprayed with a fungicide. So some suggestions. And it's funny because here we're talking diversity and it says it's woody plants, but I'm not gonna be diverse, I'm only talking trees. Shrubs we could talk a whole nother talk on. So I just wanna mention some trees. So we are not gonna be very diverse in what we're talking about. So we're gonna try to make some suggestions for trees. And in general, what I also wanna stress is not only just different trees, because here the first one's American Elm. Like, wait a minute, you just talked about Dutch Elm disease being so bad. Why is the first plant an Elm? Is that the power comes in, we said those clones, the cultivars. And there's been a lot of work, a lot of selections made on plants that are more suitable for our environment or for resistance. Here, this is a great example. This is the hardiest American Elm cultivar. It also is resistant to Dutch Elm disease. And it's now finally hitting the market. Bailey's big nursery producer for us here in this region. It's showcasing it for this coming year, so now it's readily available for us. Lots of great examples of this tree on boulevards here in Fargo does extremely well. The problem I do have though in the literature is that this is the picture you see. Who wants this tree? I don't. It's a monster. And this is actually an MDFU release. And unfortunately, the literature keeps saying that this tree is gonna be 60 foot wide, and it's a lie. It's a double leader. Nobody trains a tree on a boulevard as a double leader. So this is the original tree that escaped Dutch Elm disease. And what happens is that through testing, it was actually injected with a fungus that's able to wall itself off. So it can get infected, but it doesn't get damaged. So it's a great, great tree, but it will never look like this in your boulevard. Fullage, beautiful, beautiful foliage. This is what it looks like on the boulevard. Now this is a young tree, obviously, but it will be a normal arcing kind of elm that you normally see. It's still gonna be a big tree. You're gonna be 40 to 60 foot tall and 40 foot wide, but it's not gonna be 60 foot wide. Bur oak. Bur oak is the only native oak to North Dakota. Great oak. Everybody always complains about oak because they grow too slow, but there's nothing wrong with that. Interesting looking fruit. The acorns with the mossy cup leaves really good quality. They tolerate a lot of different urban conditions. Poor soil, dry, and they do really well, except they're just a little bit on the slower side. But there's some really neat cultivars now. And one thing I really try to promote, especially on boulevard, is narrower trees. So that way we have less pruning. Every city has to prune your boulevard whether you realize it or not for the garbage disposal trucks. So why they come and prune your trees? The only reason, because they have to be able to have your truck come up to your house to pick up your trash can to dump it in. With all of that pruning comes wounding. That's when disease and insects can come in and decrease the quality. So we can get narrower trees. So selecting on different criteria. Not only just diversity in species, but diversity within types. So here's an urban pinnacle bur oak. Really narrow oak. Really neat selection. We've also selected an upright, but the idea is getting these uprights onto the boulevard. Maybe not necessarily in your yard, but on the boulevard. Prairie stature oak. Here's where we get a little bit different species. This is a cross between white oak and English oak. And it produces a really nice fall color. So now we have an oak instead of an autumn blaze maple. And so again, having diversity, but still getting good fall color. Mongolian oak. Not the best picture. We have several of these on our campus here. Wonderful oak. Not very common. And one thing to keep in mind is thinking, and this is kind of a new phrase I've been using for a little while, but thinking outside of the autumn blaze. Out of the box. But the idea is looking at species at trees that are not common, but also that are introduced. Everybody's into this native craze. And I'm not saying native plants are bad. But you show me native soil in downtown Fargo. You show me native soil in downtown Bismarck. There's no such thing. So a native tree, a native red maple is not gonna perform in a native environment in your downtown home or Boulevard. Because there's no such thing as natives anymore. There's no native insects, that are gonna be in cooperation with your tree. There's no native fungi that are gonna create a symbiotic relationship with that tree unless it's introduced. But it's very difficult. And so here, introduced trees that are not native, obviously from Mongolia, does extremely well here. All these trees that I've selected are all hardy to zone three. If I figure across the state, that's gonna be the question. Oh, I live in a zone three, or I live in a very cold area in North Dakota. What can I plant? All of these, they're all hardy to zone three. And this is one that's not very common. So it may be difficult to find, but that's where we have to help the nursery industry with saying, I want a Mongolian oak. Can you get me one? People grow them, nurseries produce them. But you have to ask for them. It may take a couple of years for them to get onto that idea of buying different things. Because again, autumn blaze self, Mongolian oak, people don't know about. But great, great tree. Northern Flare Sugar Maple. Around Fargo, I can identify Sugar Maples very easily. You just look for the Chlorotic Tree. So again, looking for trees in the diversity that have a reduced problem. Selected based on cultivar. This is what's selected out of the NDSU program. It's more similar to more of a black maple if you look at the leaf. The leaf is really thick and it can handle a pH of over eight. Does not become Chlorotic. Doesn't have a bright red color. It's more of an orangey red. But it does better in our soil type. So here's the color just starting. Hackberry. I love Hackberry. Really hardy. One of the problems though is the leaf get what's called a nipple golf. It's kind of unsightly, but it doesn't harm the tree. Beautiful bark. Really interesting texture to it. Very adaptable tree. American Hophorn Bean. This is one of people always called Ironwood. I hate the term Ironwood because there's about 30 different species across the world that are considered to be Ironwood. So when somebody says, oh, I like Ironwood, I'm like, well, which one? This is Australia, Virginia, American Hophorn Bean. It has a hop-like fruit on it. Basically no pests. One of the big problems though, it's not really salt spray tolerant. So it doesn't make necessarily a good boulevard tree. Yard, not boulevard. Honeylocust. A big fan of honeylocust. I love honeylocust with a dappled shade. One of the problems though with honeylocusts that get really wide. So this is one on a boulevard needs a lot of pruning in a yard setting. Really nice. Makes a good patio or with a backyard setting per friendly because it lets in the light. Really, really nice tree. Also has very interesting bark as well. But here, street keeper. Very narrow. If you saw this picture and you're familiar with honeylocust, you wouldn't have said that to honeylocust if you'd be trying to guess something else. Cause it's very different from the shape of what a traditional honeylocust looks like. So selections based on form. Again, great boulevard tree, but also goes into your yard in a tighter spot as well. And still has a little bit more of the turf friendly leaves. Kentucky coffee tree, it's one I really love. There are separate male and female. People are pushing more of the male. I actually, I like the female because of the big chunky pods it makes. But it's drought tolerant, air pollution tolerant. One of the big problems it has, it's one of the last trees to leaf out. People don't like that. Especially here, we're really gearing up for spring. We're excited, winter's finally over. And then you still have a stick in your yard. And so people don't really like that. They want that green to come quick. These are those big chunky pods. And some people consider them a litter and kind of a pain. I really like it. I love the foliage. It's really fine and large and really neat tree. Amor cork tree is a really nice one. Pretty much no pests either. And that's really what I'm focusing on is, again, diversity, but trying to reduce the amount of pests. Many of these are not native. And so, but there's nothing wrong with that. They're well adapted. And that's the key is focusing on trees, woody plants that are well adapted. Not necessarily native. Throughout tolerant. Now I don't condone this, but the inner bark is yellow. But hopefully you'll never see that. But the bark itself is actually spongy. This is a touchy-feely tree. It's really cool. If you've never felt one, let me know. And if you're obviously here, or if you're coming to Fargo, I'll take you to a tree and you can do the touchy-feely. It's like squeezing a shaman. Dakota pinnacle, this is pretty common. This is on NDSU as well. But again, the focus is tolerance. This is drought tolerant. Birch are known for a bronze birch bore. If they get stressed, they produce a chemical that the bronze birch bore perceives. If they're not stressed, they don't produce the chemical. Here, this is drought tolerant. So in a drought type situation, it doesn't produce the chemical. If it goes into extreme drought, it still will. And it can be destroyed by bronze birch bore. So with birch in general, coolamoy soil, mulch, supplemental irrigation if needed, can keep your birch doing very well. Prairie Dream paper birch was selected out of the Kildere Mountains here in North Dakota. Super dry environment, by far the best paper birch. If you want a paper birch, this is the one. It can withstand drought very, very well. And it has the best white bark out of any of the paper. And also the hardiest of all of them. Look how vibrant white that is. Just gorgeous, gorgeous tree. We had drought starting in 2011, going all the way almost to 2013. The birch collection at our research station near Absaraka, we lost a lot of birch in that time frame. The parent tree of Prairie Dream is still there, beautiful, no problem. Planted back in the early 70s. Ohio Buckeye. Great tree can handle drought, but also can handle wet. One problem, though, is the nuts are poisonous. But usually the squirrel gets him before you do. Or the kid next door that goes to throw it through somebody's window. Prairie Tortures, three main ones that do very well for our climate. Prairie Tortures one, almost impossible to find, it's from NDSU. If you can find it, you've won the lottery. The beautiful fall color. Autumn Splendor is my favorite. It's a darker leaf. It produces a darker fall color. Really, really nice quality tree. For a Buckeye, this is the one I like. There is another one out of South Dakota called Homestead. It, too, does very well. Doesn't have the leaf scorch. It just doesn't have a higher quality as foliage as Prairie Tortures or Autumn Splendor. But I put Autumn Splendor as the number one. Again, getting that compact idea, less pruning, less wounding. We're selecting one that is an upright. Some flowering trees, Pagoda Dogwood. It's not enough Pagoda Dogwood planted. This is an awesome tree. There's very few trees that can handle part shade. This is one. And it's not a big tree, so it fits well into the landscape into a residential area. 25 foot, has this layered effect to it. Small white flowers have blackberries that wildlife enjoy. Really neat, neat tree. Japanese tree lilacs. They're starting to put these on the boulevard. I wanted to include this because of the diversity idea. This is the number one tree that's stacked by nurseries in our area right now. Everybody's gonna have one of these. They are disease and pest free overall, but they're not native. If something comes in, we're gonna have issues than with this. So it's gone elm, ash, maple, Japanese tree lilac. We never learn. We never learn. Beautiful, variegated form. Golden eclipse. This is not adding diversity, just because we have variegated leaves. So don't get fooled by that, that it looks a little different, so I'm gonna be okay. But it is beautiful. Here's a peak in lilac. It's closely related. I love peak in lilac, but again, if we have issues, right now we don't, because they're pretty pest free, that we know of, just really great, great plant. Beautiful bark, peely bark, like what we see with paper birch, golden color, beautiful panicles of flowers. Prairie gem flowering pear. Great form, beautiful flowering. We can get some fruits on this, can be an issue. If another pear is nearby, it needs a cross pollinator. Generally not too much of an issue, but really nice tree. More of a yard tree than a boulevard tree. Magnolia. People always say, oh, we can grow magnolias here. Yes. Zone three hardy. Who doesn't want a nice beautiful, white flowering magnolia in their yard? You know, it's gonna be more of a big shrub, you know, 25 by 25. So it's big. You can train it to be in any shape you really want, but really worth it. You know, again, a tree that relatively pest free, really hardy. Now this is spring welcome. This is what we came out of NDSU, Dr. Dale Herman selected it. And by far the most flower bud hardy of all the magnolias. Some evergreens quick. I know we're getting really close on time. We'll go through this quick. Pine Assembra. The most underrated evergreens. Grows super slow, but well worth the wait. Put this with your oak. Beautiful. Best pine there is. I think just because of its form, outstanding needles, just great. Here's some young ones on campus. Planted way too close. They're gonna be a surprise when they get old. Needle cast disease. Let's look for resistance. Norway Maple is resistant to all needle cast disease. So all the spruce problems we're having. If you're gonna do a windbreak, get Norway Maple. Norway Maple. Norway spruce, not maple. Where'd that come from? Norway spruce. Yeah, you won't have any problems with needle cast disease with Norway Maple. Norway spruce. This is a great selection. This is actually, I'm being really promoting NDFU, but it's stuff that works for us here. It's been tried. And what's great about this one is that the Norway spruce are known for the tertiary weeping branches. They look really unkept. This one doesn't have it. All the growth is pretty much upright. Just absolutely gorgeous. Douglas fir grows very well for us here. Another big tree though. Balsam fir. Also not nearly as big as Douglas fir, but again, diversity. Getting different trees in our landscape. So that way we don't end up with this problem here. And we end up with happy trees. Okay, can they hear me out there? Okay, great. Now we just have a few. First we have a comment about Prairie Expedition Elm. Yeah. This is a gardener who tried to get it from Bayleys, but after numerous attempts, they said they would not have any for retail sale this year. They're all going to municipalities. Oh, okay. She's ordered some from a nursery in Battle Lake, Minnesota who has a second supplier in Oregon. Yep, I think that's probably a good comment. I didn't realize that Bayleys was putting it all to municipalities, so thank you for that comment. Yeah, Swedberg Nursery at Battle Lake. He's getting them out of, I believe, Fester Farms out of Oregon. We have numerous nurseries that deal with our product. How about, what do you recommend for a chestnut lover? American Chestnut. Okay, and that's Hardy here in our state. There is one that I know of that's actually upwards grafting. Okay, so the classic American Chestnut will work here. We actually are working on now on trialing chestnuts. I've got several sources of seed, just to seed, but we still can have issues with disease. Okay, Magnolia love here. Is that Magnolia you talked about available in the trade yet? It is available in the trade. It's fairly expensive, but it is available. Is there a Hardy Magnolia that gets about 10 feet tall? Yeah, if you get into, well, there's quite a few of the Hardy Magnolias. Any of the stilata or the lobneri are plenty Hardy. One of the problems that will come in is the flower bud Hardy. Well, all of the stilata and lobneri are Hardy, and the flower buds will only be Hardy below the snow line on many of them. So is that like, is Royal Star the- Royal Star is okay. It's probably the next best. It just gets a little kind of ratty. Is there a dwarf Larch? And how tall does it grow? There are several dwarfs. My favorite actually I like is the varied directions Larch. It's that weeper kind of weird one, and it will get as tall as whatever support you give it. But you have to be into that really funky kind of gross look. Okay, we've got a lot of questions coming in. So we have rapid fire answers here. How about a good apricot? Can you recommend one? Nope. Okay, that's good to know. I don't do fruit. You don't, what's the problem? I don't do fruit. You don't do fruit. Okay. Okay, I'm trying to think of one. I could give you a plum. Moon glow, sun glow from Minnesota. Is that what I'm thinking? I don't know. I'm going to have a sun from apricot. The apricots, is they bloom? Yeah. They also bloom before they get dropped in the evening. Yeah, that's the, Jackie was just commenting that, yeah, the big problem with apricots is they bloom early in spring and they're very subject to frost damage to the blooms. I'm just waking up here. A west cod and scout are Canadian types that if I was an apricot grower, that would be a consideration. How about what Arborvitey would be the best choice for a windbreak? Norway Spruce? Norway Spruce Arborvitey. I never heard that variety. That way, you don't have deer problems and you don't have any brownie. Okay. Well, I mean, there are several different arborvitey that do okay. But if you have any deer issues, avoid it. I love it. Okay, how tall does the golden Japanese tree lielac grow and where can you get them? Japanese tree lielacs usually are hitting about 25, is that golden clip? It's pretty close to the same. Looking about 25 and you can find them. I found one here in Fargo at a local garden center. You've got to ask. Ivory silk, a good Japanese tree lielac? Ivory silk is the number one scheduled Japanese tree lielac, yeah, so it performs very well. How about, will you ever plant a black walnut tree? Oh, I love black walnut. You want to have good brownies, use black walnut. Not that bloody, I was going to say something else. Bloody, not crappy, so I said it. I keep thinking different things about brownie. Is this walnut or are not bitter enough? Black walnut, awesome. Okay, but. But not a good yard tree by any means. Because you've got phenolic with the tree, you've got the fruit issues, you've got so many issues that you're going to have with that not a good yard tree. Right, tomatoes will die near black walnut. But a great, great tree. Okay, you have another question about it. They did see a Royal Star Magnolia at a flower show. How well does that do in North Dakota? Royal Star is marginal, if we have an easy winner, not too much of a problem. It's another one that has problems with flower bud hardiness. Okay, there's a question about exotic fruits that are hardy here. You don't want to touch that one. Anybody want to touch that one? I don't want to touch that one. They want to know exotic fruits that are hardy here. What exotic fruits are hardy here? Arctic kiwi. I don't know if you can see that as an exotic. Yeah. Okay, what's the coolest, weirdest fruit that would be hardy here? I would say go to the Russian Ivan beauty and Ivan bell that's a cross between a Sorbus, a mountain ash, with one of them is a cross with the Hawthorne and one's a cross with Aronia. So how's that for a quirky, exotic fruit that looks good. It's got mountain ash heritage and also you'll be the only one in the neighborhood like Todd, right? You should think about having the only one in the neighborhood so you won't have any problems with other problems. Okay, there's another question. So thank you everybody. Let's just let's thank Todd for wonderful talk. Oh, Todd, I gotta have this one. Sorry about the applaud here. How about northern acclaim and street keepers? Honey, that was good. Yep, do they have long pods that litter your lawn? No, they're males. Okay, there you go. Yeah, there you go. That's what you want. The Kentucky Coffee Treaters, male, female, most of them in the ornamental trade have been selected for males, so no pods. Unfortunately, I'm a big pod person. I like to pod, but they can be messy. So those are both males. Thank you, Todd. Let's thank Todd again and all the speakers. We really appreciate it. And we're wrapping it up here. Thank you, everybody. What a great series of forums. Thank you very much. And we just hope you have a wonderful spring. If there's anything we can do here at NDSU, you've seen our team, and we're there to help you all spring, summer, and fall. So good luck with your garden. Have a beautiful year. Thank you.