S4:02 Landscape Law with Paul Goeringer

Hello Listener, 

In this month's episode, we are talking to Paul Goeringer, a University of Maryland Specialist with the UMD Agriculture Law Education Initiative. We have some great questions regarding homeowner and property rights to put Paul on the spot today. We discussed Maryland HB322 (~3:27), overhanging trees (~12:15), fence laws (~15:30), dealing with damage to your yard (~18:40) and Maryland Right to Farm Law (~26:50). You can find Paul's podcast, the Maryland Risk Management Education Podcast, here: https://marylandagpodcast.org/ 

We also have our: 

• Native Plant of the Month - Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) (~30:40)
• Bug of the Month –Spruce Spider Mite (Oligonychus ununguis) (~34:40)
• Garden Tips of the Month (~39:47) 

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 The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Senior Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture, Rachel Rhodes- Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County), and Emily Zobel-Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).

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Transcript

 Note: The Garden Thyme Podcast is produced for the ear and is designed to be heard. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.  
 
: Up beat music:    

Emily

Hello, listener. Welcome to the University of Maryland Extension presents the Garden Time Podcast, where we talk about getting down and dirty in your gardens. We're your host. I'm Emily.

Rachel

I'm Rachel.

Mikaela

And I'm Mikaela.

Emily

In this month's episode, we're talking with Paul Gerringer, a University of Maryland specialist with the AG Law Education Initiative. We have some really good had questions to put Paul on the spot today, especially since we all get so many questions regarding homeowners and property rights. No pressure. Paul.

:Upbeat Music:

Emily

Welcome to the podcast Paul!

Paul

hello, how are you guys today?

Emily

We're doing well. Now, we do need to do a quick legal disclaimer on behalf of Paul, that while Paul is a lawyer, he cannot be your lawyer. And while he's going to give us some good general advice today regarding legal issues with homeowners and property rights, you really do need to seek out your own lawyer and consider this as educational information only.

Mikaela

Yes, you can't use I heard it on a podcast as sound reasoning. It really doesn't hold up.

Emily

I'm sure someone's tried it in a courtroom.

Mikaela

It would not be the first time, I'm sure. So Paul, can you tell us a little bit more about your role within University of Maryland and what other kind of projects you work on? Because we know that you have your own podcast, but we want other people to know what you do on that podcast.

Paul

Yeah, so I have my own podcast at the Maryland Risk Management Education Podcast (https://marylandagpodcast.org/) that we cover a lot of stuff I work on which I deal a lot with property rights. Environmental issues mainly focus from the legal end and trying to help landowners, producers, anyone in the state try to better understand some of the regulatory and court decisions that could impact farms. So right now I do a lot with right to farm laws, solar development in the state, which usually gets me almost people want to kill me after the meetings with that because it's such a hot button issue. Depending on where you're at and then dealing with some alternative crop contracts from new things that are popping up on the market that folks are trying to grow. I think that's the best way to put some of this stuff.

Mikaela

Well, thank you so much. We're really excited to have you on. We've been talking about having you on for maybe years. It's been a while.

Paul

Happy to be on.

Emily

Well, I know that none of us have a legal background, and yet we constantly get questions from homeowners, either as things pop up in the news or when they themselves encounter things around their property regarding landscapes and property rights or potential legal issues. So we are so thankful to have you on the podcast today. I know you have written a few articles for the Maryland Grows blog as well on these. So if people want more kind of in depth knowledge, we'll put some of those links in our show notes as well.

Mikaela

So one of the really neat bills that came out of Maryland is the House Bill 322, which is the Low Impact Landscape Bill. And that went into effect, I believe, in October of 2021. And we're curious to know a little bit more about that bill and how that might impact homeowners.

Paul

Yeah, so it is a good bill because if we look at it, the idea behind it is I'm assuming you get a lot of questions, people that live in HOA.

Mikaela

Yes.

Paul

If we think about it, if you're not within an HOA, you can do pretty much anything you want to with your yard, as long as you're not violating zoning and planning in some way or planning a noxious weed. You could probably let it go and never mow it and just let it become a jungle if you wanted to, because that's your right as an American. 

Emily

I have multiple citations from my city and county that tell me otherwise.

Paul

This is true. They will get a little offended with you after a while because in your lot will begin to look like it's abandoned, and they don't like that because it leads to other problems, potentially. But within this, we've seen this pop up a lot within people trying to plant more low impact yards to where they're not using as much water. They're utilizing native plants. I'm assuming you all know more about than I do. I'm just a lawyer in all of this. But yeah, the idea behind the bill was pretty much HOA usually have written in the covenants that go in with either within the deed or within the restrictions you buy into. When you buy into the HOA, you have to have the beautiful green one with a specific type of grass usually planted. You have to mow it to a certain height, typically, because we want everything to look uniform, because uniform looks cool, apparently. And people love uniform yards when they do.

Mikaela

People love their turf grass. You know don't come after turf grass. People get offended.

Paul

Exactly. Your entire HOA is just one giant monoculture.

Rachel

Exactly.

Emily

Well, and I always think it's funny when you talk to people and you ask them, like, what crop or what plant makes up more acreage in the United States than anything else? And it's turf grass. We have more turf grass per acre than anything else in the United States, and yet it's not a super beneficial plant. It's better to have turf grass than to have empty soil that's going to erode. But it doesn't feed anyone. It doesn't feed any insects, really. It doesn't feed anything besides, like, cows, and deer, maybe, but

Mikaela

maybe not even that

Rachel

Bunnies

Emily

I don't know if bunnies would eat that over like clover or something else. So, yeah, it's not necessarily like a beneficial plant in any way, shape, or form. Back to Maryland House Bill 322, we diverge a lot Paul.

Paul

That's okay.

Emily

We just did that.

Paul

But homeowners within an HOA decided to plant a low impact yard because they wanted to add native species in. They wanted to get away from turf grass and were actually fined. And they did what most people would not do. They went to their delegate in the Maryland House and actually got a bill passed to allow for low impact yards that even if it's in the HOA covenant, restrictions that you can't do it, you can now do it. The HOA cannot restrict you from being able to do this and at least gives you slightly more ability that as we deal with climate change, if you want to move away from a water intensive yard, you can now plant something that will work within what you think your yard should look like.

Emily

Now on that note, does the bill let you have a free for all or is there restrictions even amongst the bill on what you can branch out of away from?

Paul

There are restrictions they do include in sort of some definitions for like pollinator plots are part of this. Some of the lowimpact native grasses would be if you want to put in rain gardens that's much more allowable under the bill. It's not a free for all. You still have to plant within certain areas. But it does allow you slightly more freedom than planting just turf grass with certain trees, certain flowers, certain other ornamentals being planted in the yards. You don't just get to make it up as you go along.

Emily

Okay.

Mikaela

And actually this really culminates a really good question about how much control can Hoas have on your property? How much actual legality do they hold?

Paul

They hold a lot as long as they are not being discriminatory in how they do it, they hold a lot. I use HOA a lot in my undergrad class. We talk about property rights and I will almost always find the latest story from one former vet who lives in an HOA and wants to put up the flagpole with the American flag and the HOA covenants and restrictions prevent him from putting his flag up. And I always point out to my class this is right, this is fair. They're like no. And I'm like yes it is. You moved into an HOA, you made your decision that this is where you wanted to live and they are telling you you can't, you've given up that right. Like you're allowed to contract away the right to put up a flagpole in your yard even if you want to be patriotic.

Rachel

Yeah, I don't live in an HOA, but I have family members who live in an HOA. It's one of those things that there are restrictions and you usually know those restrictions before you buy the property.

Paul

They typically would be, you typically would get the deed or whatever the HOA covenants are before you buy it. If you are in a historic area or historic house that's covered, you may not be able to play in a low impact yard because it's still going to be restricted by whatever we would expect to see in a historic area. So there are areas it's still limits where you can do that.

Rachel

We just bought a property that has an easement on it and it would be really nice to plant like a living fence or some type of hedger in front. But we're restricted on that as well and we knew that well in advance. So I think that when you're buying a property, it's very important to go through that deed with a fine tooth comb. And maybe it means that you need to consult your lawyer and say, what does this mean? What does that mean? How do we move through this? So that when you move, you're not all of a sudden taken back and you're like, wait a minute, I can't do that. I didn't know. Part of being what am I trying to say here? The due diligence of being an informed buyer.

Paul

Yeah. You're buying in and you've got to figure out all the restrictions because when you're dealing with HOA, they can restrict a lot.

Rachel

Yeah. And just because you move into a property that has a defunct HOA, it doesn't mean that at any point that HOA can't and won't be working at some point in your future.

Mikaela

Well, I'm sure that's one thing that you might run into as well, Paul, is critical area and buffer area. And just how a lot of homeowners who are buying waterfront property, especially if they aren't from the state or they're from out of town, don't understand those restrictions that come with being in that sort of area and feel like they should be able to either knock down the house or put on an addition and really get themselves into trouble when they realize maybe that's not as easy as it seemed.

Paul

Oh, yeah, I deal with that quite a few times where people come in like they're telling me I can't tear down the house. I'm like, well, where is it? What's, here? You're in a critical area, you're limited to what you can do. I was like, you should have been made aware of that when you bought the property. And I bet you were made aware, you just didn't pay attention.

Mikaela

Well, and I guess that's one of my questions is whether they're being told either by their realtors or neighbors or anybody, and they just don't read the fine print or if it's just not mentioned and it's just sort of assumed that you should know this rule. It's very confusing. It's confusing being a homeowner.

Paul

It really is. And my guess is in some cases, they may not be telling the realtor what they want to do, or they tell the realtor and then they think, oh, there's a way around this rule, I can figure it out.

Rachel

Yeah.

Paul

No, there's probably not point to bring.

Mikaela

Up is not just being diligent about the HOA rules, but if you're within town limits, each town will have their own rules upon historic rules. Upon HOA rules.

Emily

Yeah, that's a good point, Mikaela.

Mikaela

So another set of questions that we get a lot, and you probably do too, is what can people do about any trees or vegetation that hangs over property lines or might be threatening a structure or where does that property line stand? Does it go up into the air as well? Is that something people have to consider?

Paul

So with stuff hanging over the property line onto your property, and this is the only time within the law I'm actually allowed to tell you this self help is actually allowed. You are allowed to cut a tree back to the property line as long as you don't kill it or the vegetation to the property line and remove it so it doesn't damage your property and you have to do it at your own expense.

Rachel

What about if it's like a shared hedge?

Paul

Then you would split the cost between the two landowners. Each would probably normally would take care of their side of the hedge and maintain it up to that point, or split cost just one person take it on and just share the cost of keeping up the hedge.

Rachel

What about if that tree that's overhanging on the property line falls on someone's car or shed?

Paul

At that point, it would be the owner of the trees fault, and

Mikaela

Oh, really?

Paul

You would have to take yeah, you'd end up have probably either having to see if their insurance would cover it or sue them in court to get it taken care of because they own the tree. It's only the part that's overhanging your property that you can technically deal with, and you have no ability to take the tree down if it actually is needs to be taken down or removed safely.

Mikaela

Well, that's good to know.

Emily

If someone had, say, a neighbor that had a dead tree that they were worried about falling on their property, should they be documenting that?

Paul

Yes. I normally tell people to take pictures because you can usually come back and show stuff, and there's just like with most phones, there's metadata to tell us the date the photo was taken, so we don't have to worry about you holding up a Proof of Life newspaper that day and taking two photos with it. But yeah, we can do that. The other thing to point out with trees is if you're an urban landowner, you actually do have a duty to take out trees that are potentially going to cause property damage to somebody else or could injure somebody else. If you're a rural landowner, you do not have that same duty to do it. But for the most part, courts have looked at it in Maryland and suggest that you should have walked out, you should have looked at your trees, you should have figured out that that could have happened and it's on you to deal with it and that just helps that case.

Mikaela

It's hard because I can see both sides because tree care is super expensive and someone may not have the money, right.

Paul

Well in some cases too it's money and depending on the county, it may also require you to get a permit to take the tree out. And then the county permitting process may not be the fastest. But if you're at least trying to get the tree out and doing the permitting and helps you show that you're actually doing what you're supposed to do to meet the law, that now is the county's fault, you couldn't take the tree out.

Rachel

So are there any laws that need to be considered before I put up a fence or do a living fence on my property?

Paul

For the most part it's just make sure if you're in an HOA or anything that may have restriction or even the county make sure it's not requiring a permit. And then if you are, at least talk to the neighbors before you do it to make sure they're good with a fence going up or if they want to help, if they like the idea of a fence and they want to share the cost of putting in the fence.

Rachel

Now is there any type of setback rules like does a fence have to be so many feet from another person's property?

Paul

It typically does not typically you can get it right up to the property line but it may just depend on where you're putting it up in the county to where they may have setback requirements for it, in which county you're doing it in. And I should point out in most counties do not define what a fence is.

Mikaela

Well, that's another one I get a lot of questions about is people who are trying to leave their ditches or the areas around their driveways unmone, trying to bring it back to natural and just understanding that the county could come in, especially if it's a hazard at any time, and cut that area back. We really don't have any rights to those easement areas. Is that correct?

Paul

That's correct. Usually if it's a ditch or something where the county may have a right of way across it to keep it maintained and make sure that the water flows properly through it. That can come up and does all the time.

Mikaela

Our ditches are so deep here, especially.

Paul

If it abuts a road just normally the county or the states right away across for that road will typically include the ditch because they have to keep it clean so people could actually use it if needed.

Mikaela

Is there a resource besides contacting the county to figure out where those might be, where people can kind of like identify features about their property?

Paul

The county is usually the best spot because they're going to know they're going to have everything mapped out to where they can figure out if it falls within an area they have an easement across.

Emily

This is a good shout out as well that if you are planning to put in anything large scale like shrubbery or trees in addition to contacting the county you should also call miss utilities to come out and mark before doing anything like that. Because if you put your tree on something and then the power company needs to get access to it or water companies to get access to it, they normally typically will not hesitate to remove your tree and or dig around it to get access to what they need. Sounds true.

Rachel

That's very good information, especially coming up with the spring planting season.

Mikaela

And a good idea is if you call them missed utilities and you're not ready to do that work yet is to take pictures of where they marked because they do fade and that way you can reference it later. If you don't have time to call them back a second time at least you have something to work with.

Emily

Okay, so one of the other questions I think Paul, that we always get from people is what do they do if they have a neighbor or a landscaping company that has somehow caused damage to their yard or their family or their pets? I think pesticide drift is the one that normally people think of but sometimes other things like my neighbor just did this and it killed my oak tree or it's causing flooding to happen in my property now or something like that. So what can be done precautionary what can be done afterwards? Thoughts?

Mikaela

This is a very loaded question because it happens a lot.

Paul

And it depends sometimes on what the damage is as to what exactly they can do with pesticide or any other kind of chemical drift that could potentially cause problems. Which does happen, because homeowners may think they can go out and spray something and then they have literally no idea what they're doing. I didn't say that out loud.

Emily

Remember, all chemicals have a label and you should read it and follow it.

Rachel

The label is the law.

Paul

It is the law. You have to follow it according to the label and you have to apply it according to the label. And if there are wind restrictions you actually have to follow those wind restrictions. If you see them spray and you can document it that's usually the best. If not typically it would require calling out MDA and having them do some tests to make sure determine what the damage was actually caused by to see what stuff was actually happening. In that case then you can potentially take them to court if they're not willing to at least pay for the damage or help cover that cost. If it's tearing up your yard in some way or some other stuff you can typically either get them to pay for that or take them to court, almost all my answers are going to say, you can either get them to pay or take them to court. There's an easy way and a hard way to do everything in life with water damage. Specifically, you cannot change the way water naturally flowed across a property. If a neighbor starts changing, that changes the way water leaves their property and now causes it to pull up on yours.

Paul

That can typically be a reason to get either get them to change it back or start paying for the damage to fix what's going to happen to your property to get that done.

Mikaela

I didn't know that. Okay, that's good information.

Emily

And then my follow up to that would be, what about something incredibly invasive like bamboo?

Paul

So, first off, no one should ever plant bamboo.

Mikaela

Thank you. You said you didn't know plants.

Paul

Look at you, and I firmly believe that if you plant bamboo and it grows on your neighbor's property, your neighbor should just be allowed to salt the earth on your property to keep anything from growing. I have tremendous views on bamboo that it should never be planted with damage from bamboo. It's kind of like damage from trees. I have to cut it back. I believe some bamboo now in the state are listed as invasive species, and you're not supposed to plant them, or am I wrong?

Mikaela

No. Yeah, I think they're I forget which one. They're not a noxious weed, but they're.

Emily

At least tier one, which unfortunately doesn't mean that they're not still being sold.

Mikaela

Exactly.

Emily

So people sometimes buy them and then plant them. I think the call that I got about it was people bought the property, and it already had bamboo on it from the past. People. And then the neighbors were upset because the bamboo was basically destroying the concrete of their driveway because it had encroached over to the runners, and they sort of wanted to know who was liable for the damages because the neighbors wanted them to pay for a new driveway.

Rachel

Oh, wow.

Paul

That's one where I would be yelling at the previous owner and including them in any discussion. But in that case, if you're the one that planted it or the current property owner with it on your property, you've got to keep it from damaging other people's properties. Neighbors have the right to cut it back to the fence line and remove it up until that point, but that's about all they can do. Usually, if it starts damaging the other property, that's when we have problems. And again, it should never be planted. It's useless.

Emily

It is, and it's very destructive, and it's hard to get rid of. So in general, we don't recommend planting that one at all. But I definitely know there was a time period in the 90s where bamboo is the living fence line or the private building was really popular and in style.

Rachel

Yes. So bamboo was actually a tier two plant for the state of Maryland.

Mikaela

So it is allowed to be sold. It just needs to have signage.

Emily

Yeah, but you know what?

Mikaela

I would probably just avoid buying bamboo, period, if you're in question, because it is super aggressive. But there are so many more aggressive plants, too, so when in doubt, contact your local extensionator to make sure whatever it is you're considering to planting isn't going to get you in trouble in the future. Right, Paul?

Paul

Yeah, that's usually the best way.

Rachel

I don't even like bamboo as a house plant because I'm so afraid that someone is going to toss it out and then it's just going to go crazy.

Paul

I'm assuming bamboo is on the same list as Bradford pears. You're not supposed to plant Bradford pear tree.

Rachel

Well, Bradford is a tier two plant, too, so it can be sold.

Paul

I remember random things periodically.

Mikaela

Well, you're pretty good memory then. That's a pretty good one. And Rachel, what you were talking about, that's what happened with Day Lilies, right, is that that's how they've become a problem is people would toss them into the woods. Sometimes they do that with other things, like daffodils. They can toss them into the woods and then they start to survive procreate, and then you have a problem. Fortunately, neither of those plants is a tier two plant.

Rachel

And you have the yellow flag iris, do you remember that when it was being sold in the early 2000s as like a wetland plant has just taken over some of our wetland areas.

Mikaela

Well, at least that one is not allowed to be sold.

Rachel

Exactly.

Emily

Anyway, and I assume that the solution is just going to be to take them to court. But if you hire a landscape company and they do something to damage your property, you would file a complaint with MDA and take them to court.

Paul

Yeah. Depending on what it is, you could either take them to court in most cases, if they screw up badly, they're probably going to figure out they did and it's just easier to turn it in on their insurance company than let.

Emily

Their insurance company okay, cool.

Mikaela

Well, that's what I was going to say, is solving neighbor disputes could a lot be avoided if neighbors just tried to talk to each other and be sad about it?

Paul

Yes, they have. Life's problems would be solved if you just met your neighbors and got along with them.

Mikaela

And we know people are weird. Okay, everybody, I can put that out in the podcast. We know people are weird. Okay. So, like, common decency and understanding goes a long way, avoiding any damage and stuff like that.

Emily

I think it's worth noting that we, in extension, are not regulatory. So if you have incidences of drift, you really need to document it and then report it to Maryland Department of Agriculture. And for people who live outside of Maryland, you should reach out to see if it's either your Department of AG or your Department of Environment that will handle pesticide drugs, but your extension and universities are not the people that are going to handle that well.

Mikaela

And another good point to make is that unless you know exactly what is being sprayed, you can't just blanket test for anything. Even if you have a sample, you can't just test for every pesticide under this. It doesn't really work that way. It's not like a sample test where it comes back and it tells you what pesticide was used. So you have to have a pretty good case built up to go into that territory.

Emily

That's a good point.

Rachel

That's a very good point.

Emily

Paul, you mentioned this. Can you talk a little bit about what right to farm is?

Paul

I can. So with right to farm, the idea behind it is it is a nuisance defense law. So we look at what nuisance is. Nuisance is you can't do anything that creates, you know, and odor, dust, other disruptions noises that would ruin your neighbors use and enjoyment of their property. And that's what farms are really good at. They make noises, they have odors and they have lots of dust.

Mikaela

They do.

Paul

So in the we came up with this idea, or state legislatures did, to create these nuisance defense laws. They're all sort of somewhat different, but most of them do the same thing with basically as long as the farm meets the requirements within the law and I can talk about what some of those are within Maryland here in a second. You gain the defense of the law and no one can claim your nuisance. So in Maryland, we need you to be established for at least one year. Anytime before that one year you can be sued. After that it's pretty hard to sue a farm and you have to be in compliance with anything the county within zoning and planning tells you to do. If you're doing anything, any state permits, any federal permits and then just any other state restrictions such as taking care of noxious weeds or anything like that, you need to be in compliance with. Because typically if we're doing all of that, we shouldn't be creating an impact on our neighbors as badly as we would be if we were. Within Maryland's law, we allow all 23 counties to come up with their own right to farm ordinances, which is not my favorite thing in the world because now I have to deal with 23 of them instead of one.

Paul

But luckily they're all pretty much the same. And the one big thing that all of them do is when you're buying property, especially if you've never lived in an AG area, when you're at closing and you're signing all the documents, you are handed a piece of paper that tells you you're moving into an AG area. Right to farm law is this you now understand what a right to farm law. Is and nobody pays attention when they sign it because it's just another document put in front of them. So at one point, when I first started, we actually worked with MDA and then Southern Maryland AG Development Commission to do realtor trainings across the state to kind of make realtors aware of the fact that this law existed and they should actually make people aware of it at signing. And that would help prevent a lot of problems, because within the state law, we're one of the only states that do this. You don't actually go to court if you want to complain, you go to the Maryland AG Mediation Program at MDA and typically it's going to either be mediated there or with the county board depending on how the county law is written.

Emily

So I actually have a funny right to farm story that ended up being like really comical. I had a homeowner whose entire raised bed got overtaken with four trades and it's because the farmer had airplanes spread their cover crop that year and they had drifted over into their raised beds and they could not figure out what they were. So they brought me in one and they were like, well the farmer sprayed something on their soybeans in the fall and I was like, they didn't spray chemicals, they were spreading cover crops and those drifted into your property. This is breaking up actually, once they knew what it was and why it was, they were ecstatic by it. But it was kind of a funny thing on like this is something that happens when you live near a farm and a farmer is doing this. So I think we just want to officially say thank you for coming on the podcast, Paul. We really appreciate you coming on and we'll put a link to your podcast in our show notes if people are interested in learning a little bit more about agriculture law and what restrictions there are for farmers and people living in agriculture areas.

Paul

Okay, cool.

Mikaela

And I sort of had to do some digging, no pun intended, because March is a pretty dismal month. But that being said, because it's been such a warm winter, I think we're going to start to see a lot of things coming up much earlier than expected, so I wouldn't be surprised to see things that you're not normally used to seeing. But blood brood, which is my native plant of this month, sanguinaria canadensis, is one of the earlier spring ephemerals to break ground and in fact I think they'll at least start in March and then with some warmer weather so we might even see some blooming in that time. But bloodroot is a fragile flower and it's common throughout Maryland, but it's less common in the coastal plain area. It's definitely more of like a Piedmont woodland kind of plant. So it's got very distinctive leaves with what we call deep sinuses. So that's kind of like the indentations into the leaves and they're very distinctive shape and they're very pretty and the flowers are very happy white flowers. It's a very classic look with a yellow center and it certainly does look like the harbinger of warmer weather.

Mikaela

So it definitely does appear to me to be like the sign of spring. So it'd be really easy to trip over these as you're walking through the woods because it is a very short spring ephemeral. It's like twelve inches tall and it frequents the forest floor, as many other ephemerals do. But this flower actually has an underground stem, so it appears as though the flower comes up on like a stalk, but that's actually not the stem. It has an underground stem, which we usually call rhizomes, and these have a reddish SAP when they're cut, hence the name bloodroot. And Native Americans would use this SAP as a dye for baskets, clothing, for painting faces or their horses, as well as an insect repellent. But I cannot claim the efficacy of using blood root, nor should you, because if you overharvest something like this, we don't want people to be doing that. But with all of these other really interesting qualities, I should note that you do not want to eat it. So it is not one of those plants you're supposed to ingest. The rhizomes underground can actually be fatal if eaten due to a very high concentration of alkaloids present.

Rachel

I love a good toxic plant.

Mikaela

Yeah. So while the Native Americans might have used it at one point, using it as paint, maybe don't put it in contact with your skin because you just don't know what those compounds could do. And certainly like you do with any plant that's kind of questionable, you use gloves if you're handling something like this. There's a higher chance of catching blood root in bloom as we approach April. But keep an eye out for those early leaves with the really deep margins in March, especially as we have some of these early warm days.

Emily

Awesome. It is a cute little flower.

Rachel

It is. Cute flower.

Mikaela

Its name is kind of brutal. I mean, it sounds barbaric, but then it's just like a really cute flower.

Rachel

It's a beautiful flower. I love to find it.

Emily

It's a very happy flower. So it's kind of fun that it's happy. But actually I'm looking at the pictures of the root here and it's a really pretty orangey red color too.

Rachel

Yes.

Emily

Even though it's got this morbidish name to it, it's very pretty.

Mikaela

And I think the dye that it makes is more on the spectrum of orange tones rather than like a deep red. It's not like a berry red or anything like that. So it's really neat. And you guys know me, I love plants that have fun facts. So that's my fun fact.

Emily

Awesome. I like it. So this month bug of the month is not actually a true insect. It is a mite. And it is going to be the spruce spider mite. So spider mites in general are rather tiny, but these ones are particularly on the smaller side, with the adults being about half a millimeter in length. So you will need a hand lens if you want it to see the adults or the eggs on your trees. So their body color is going to depend on their host. And it varies from pale green to dark green, even to dark red. And the legs are generally pale in color. The newly hatched larvae are going to have six legs, and they tend to be a pink salmon color until they start to feed. After feeding, the larvae and the sequential stages afterwards are generally a green or dark red. In coloration. The eggs, again, are super tiny, so you're going to need a hand lens in order to see them. But they are going to vary from tan, which is the active season eggs, to red, which would be the eggs that are overwintering. Each egg has a single hair like strip that comes out of the top, which is how you can distinguish spruce spider mite eggs from other spider mite eggs that can also be found on conifers.

Emily

In addition to the spruce spider mites, conifers can also have two spotted spider mites and a data atom spider mites as well. So you do sort of want to double check to see what type you're likely dealing with. But spruce spider mites are cold temperature mites, so they are active March through June and then in the fall when temperatures are a little bit cooler. So that could also be a giveaway which one you are dealing with. So these mites are going to feed on spruce, pine, hemlock and arbor vitas, but they'll also attack other conifers. But this is not a species that you're going to find on your deciduous hardwoods. These guys are exclusive for conifers. Unlike some other spider mite species, these guys do prefer cold temperatures and are active in the spring. So March through June or the fall, September through November, when temperatures get above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, their population often declines because they don't like that hot temperature. So you'll see these guys again in the spring. Their population will drop down in the summer, and then they'll come back in the fall. They do have several generations a year with the eggs overwintering on the bark and the needles of your conifer trees.

Emily

Spruce spider mites can develop from egg to adult in two to three weeks under normal conditions. And they follow a typical spider mite life cycle of egg to a six leg larvae, to an eight leg nymphal stage, to an adult made it. Females can produce both male and female offspring while unmade it. Females will only produce females through parthenogenesis. Depending on the temperature, each female can deposit an average of 20 to 40 eggs during her lifetime. After the first generation, overlapping generations are fairly common with all stages being present at any given time. These guys have a piercing, sucking mouth part, and as they feed, they'll withdraw the chlorophyll from the needles of your pine trees and the speeding damage will result in tiny yellow stippling marks on your needles. The needles will often turn yellow and then brown and sometimes will fall off. Damage is oftentimes first seen on the older needles at the base of the tree or on one particular side, particularly the sides that are in full sun on trees or shrubbery, and they'll eventually move up the tree. The species generally does not produce large amounts of silk, which give them the name spider mite.

Emily

But when their levels are high enough, the larvae can produce silk threads that they use to carry themselves via aircare to spread out to other host plants. They do prefer to feed on older growth and will generally not feed on the current year's needles until they've hardened off. So again, you're going to find this on the older growth that's down at the bottom of your trees compared to newer growth, and your larger trees may end up having die back on certain branches if you have large populations on them. Treatment may be needed if the tree shows 10% damage or if you use a beat sheet or paper. So if you take a sheet of paper out on a clipboard and shake it over the tree, and you have ten mites per white sheet of paper using your hand lens, then you could justify treating you can use horticultural oil to treat these guys, but do not use it on Bruce Bruce trees or FIR trees, as the oil will strip the waxing coat off of these and will damage and or burn the trees more so than this. Make sure whenever you're using any kind of chemical, whether it's horticultural oil, dormant oil or soaps, that you read the label and follow those instructions in the event that your population gets large enough to have that webbing.

Emily

Note that spraying treatment will not be effective because the webbing will prevent the chemical from getting to them. And that's for spiderman.

Rachel

Oh, that's a great one. Emily.

Emily

Rachel, do you have some garden tips for us?

Rachel

Do I have some garden tips? All right. So we're having an unusually warm winter, and according to the National Femiology Network website, the Chesapeake Bay area is three to four weeks ahead of our normal spring. So what does that mean for us? As gardeners, I would say you've missed your window to prune your trees and shrubs because of this unseasonably warm weather. Your trees are starting to butt out already. I've seen my maples are budding, cherries are starting to butt in flour, so please don't prune. Or if you're going to do it, make sure that you're doing it sparingly, because you could really damage those trees that are already coming out of dormant sea. And with that as well. Our ground can still be worked up and you can take your soil test if you're planning on amending your soil or your flower beds for the spring, our ground is not frozen. Take your soil test, send them to your regional lab. If you are in Maryland and you're looking for a soil test lab, you can visit our home and garden information website with the University of Maryland extension and just type in the search bar soil Testing.

Rachel

And it should bring you to our soil testing page and it will give you a list of the regional soil testing facilities in the Mid Atlantic. So since we're having that unusual warm weather, we're more than likely going to see an influx of insect activity that we should be seeing four weeks from now. We're going to probably be seeing it now. So with that scale, insects are going to start a little bit earlier. Eastern tent caterpillars are going to be hatching a little bit earlier. So that plays into all of the integrated pest management principles that we talk about extensively with this podcast. So looking at your trees and shrubs, looking at the leaves, the bark, trying to find any egg cases and making sure that you're taking care of those in an environmentally appropriate manner. And if you're thinking about starting your garden, it's the perfect time to sew some spinach, lettuce, aruga, or any other salad greens. You can do that in a cold frame, or you can sew them directly in your raised beds. Just put a floating row cover over top of them so that you can protect them just in case we get some wonky Mid Atlantic weather where it freezes at the end of March or early April.

Rachel

It might happen.

Emily

It has been known to happen in the past.

Rachel

Yeah, it could be 70 tomorrow and 40 the following day. We just never know. So if you haven't started any of your warm season crops like eggplant, pepper, tomato, please do that now. If you're starting them inside under light, you can even do some broccoli and cabbage. You still have time for that. And they should be ready to go outside in the next six to eight weeks. So we want to make sure that they're outside and you're exposing them to some cool temperatures and slowly hardening them off so that they're ready to go outside by Mother's Day. That's usually our frost free period in Maryland. If you are doing any type of peas in your vegetable garden, now would be the time to put up your trellises for those. It's also a good time to harden off any of your leaks, your onions or shallots. And you can do that in a cold frame, or you can just simply set them outside on a porch or in a protected area for a few hours each day and then bring them back inside and gradually increase their time that they're spending outside. So that they're ready to be outside and you're not shocking their system by just throwing them outside.

Emily

Awesome, Rachel. Those are some good tips.

Rachel

Thank you.

Emily

That's all we have for this episode, listener. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll tune in next month for more gardening tips. If you have any garden related questions, please analysts at umegardenpodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at Garden Time podcast. That's garden th Y-M-E for more information about the University of Mail Extension and these topics, please check out the University of Mail and Extension Home and Garden Information Center's website. Thanks for listening, and have fun getting down and dirty in your garden. 

Everyone

Goodbye.

Mikaela

The Garden Time Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland extension. Mikaela Boley, senior Agent Associate in Talbot County for Horticulture, Rachel Rhodes, Agent Associate for Horticulture in Queen Annes County. And Emily Zobel, senior Agent Associate for Agriculture in Dorchester County.

Emily 

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