The Garden Thyme Podcast
A monthly podcast where we help you get down and dirty in your garden, with timely gardening tips, information about native plants, and more! The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. https://extension.umd.edu/. This institution is an equal opportunity provider.
The Garden Thyme Podcast
S3:E07 Shade Gardening
Hello Listener,
The summer heat is here, and if you are like us, you are taking a break under the shade of a lovely tree. In this episode, we are talking all about shade. Why we love it, some tips for gardening in your shady area ( 10:07 ), and a list of native plants ( 16:35 ) that enjoy the shade as much as Mikaela.
We also have our:
- Native Plant of the Month - Northern Maidenhair Fern- Adiantum pedatum at 30:35
- Bug of the Month - Eastern Beach tiger beetles at 33:50
- Garden Tips of the Month at 39:45
If you have any garden-related questions, please email us at UMEGardenPodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/GardenThymePodcas. For more information about UME and these topics, please check out the UME Home and Garden Information Center and Maryland Grows Blog at https://marylandgrows.umd.edu/.
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).
Theme Song: By Jason Inc
University programs, activities, and facilities are available to all without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, national origin, political affiliation, physical or mental disability, religion, protected veteran status, genetic information, personal appearance, or any other legally protected class.
We currently have an open survey for ALL listeners. Whether you’ve listened to all of our episodes, or this is your first time. We developed an evaluation to determine if the information we share on the podcast has made a difference in your practices at home. We promise that it is a short, easy 5-minute survey, and we even have exclusive podcast stickers to give to those who participate. We are so thankful for the feedback, and we appreciate you tuning in for the podcast!
If you have any garden-related questions, please email us at UMEGardenPodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/GardenThymePodcas.
For more information about UME and these topics, please check out the UME Home and Garden Information Center and Maryland Grows Blog at https://marylandgrows.umd.edu/.
The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Principal Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture; Rachel Rhodes- Senior Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County); and Emily Zobel- Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).
Theme Song: By Jason Inc,
University programs, activities, and facilities are available to all wit...
Garden Thyme Podcast Transcript: S3:E07 Shade Gardening
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:
Rachel
Hello, listener. Welcome to the University of Maryland Extension Presents, the Garden Time podcast, where we talk about getting down and dirty in your garden. We're your hosts. I'm Rachel.
Mikaela
I'm Mikaela.
Emily
And I'm Emily.
Rachel
In this month's episode, we're talking about shade gardening.
:Up beat Music:
Rachel
The dog days of summer are upon us, and here we are melting away. And if you're like us, cough. Cough. Mikaela, you're dying.
Mikaela
I'm dying inside. So I love facts and figures. I love numbers because they help me quantify what it is I'm trying to understand or talk about. And so as we get started talking about shade gardening, I thought some of these were some interesting facts about shade and vegetation. So honestly, we use a lot of vegetation to combat heat, especially in the heat island effect or in urban areas. And so while we are actually hosting an entire episode about climate change coming up soon and its effects, we just want to acknowledge that with rising temperatures, humidity, and an increase in extreme weather events, we can use these plants and vegetation as one of the most effective ways to help protect properties and your home and yourself. So trees and vegetation, lower surface and air temperatures, which is kind of intuitive because you go into the shade to seek some respite from the sun. So they do this by what's called evapotranspiration, which is basically when leaves sweat, it's when they release that moisture.
Emily
It's good to know that everything sweats in the summer heat.
Mikaela
So shaded surfaces can be 20 to 45 degrees cooler than temperatures of unshaded surfaces. So again, that makes a lot of sense. And the air alone is about two to nine degree cooler in shaded environments. And this is why I don't understand why they don't incorporate more trees into parking lot design. Everyone is always vying for the shade of the one single ratty looking parking lot tree. So all these cars are basically parked under the smallest puniest looking trees because obviously it's going to be cooler if you park your car in the shade. So we're not going to even talk about all the benefits of carbon reduction. But here are some of the obvious benefits of having shaded environments. First, you have reduced energy use. Planting a shade tree on, like the south or southwestern exposure of a house directly reduces demand for AC because it's a lot cooler. And if you're using deciduous trees, that's even better because that actually allows more sunlight in those exposures in the winter, where the sun's kind of lower in that southern hemisphere. It also improves air quality and lowers greenhouse gas emissions by reducing those air pollutants and using carbon sequestration.
Mikaela
And then, of course, this is my favorite, it improves quality of life, not just for human beings, but for all living things. Vegetation not only improves the aesthetics, but it provides habitat and food for so many different species. It reduces noise from roadways and cars. It provides a visual screen or barrier, the perfect shady reading tree. Do I need to keep listing things? Because I think the list goes on and on. Exactly. So it's obvious because when people go to the park and they're having a picnic or they're playing, more often than not they're playing underneath the shade of a tree. So you have to think about just intuitively. Human beings are kind of drawn to it because it is a cooler environment. There's also been a lot of studies and plenty of information available about the benefits of vegetation and shade trees, as well as a lot of cost analyses of why we should be planting as many trees as possible. So you can either check out the EPA website, which has a nice website about heat island effect, but there's so many more resources available.
Emily
Awesome. So I'm sold hopefully we've sold you listeners on having some shade. That being said, even if you are not in a predicament or a place where you can start planting lots of shade trees, because we know trees require a little bit more of an investment and being July right now, we don't actually recommend planting a tree right now. Now it's not an ideal time to plant those shade trees. You're going to want to wait till.
Mikaela
The thank you for that disclaimer.
Emily
But I also know that one thing that I always get questions asked of me, which is part of the reasons we decided to make July. This as well as shade being a great way to beat the heat, is you do have people that already have backyards and properties that have lots of shade and they sort of have this challenge and it's really easy to kind of go to a big box store and find plants that are sun loving. Full sun, love this, love that. It can be trickier at times to landscape. When you have full shade. You might have your house and then a five or six foot gap and then a fence, and that area is probably only getting full sun at noon and then it's in shade the rest of the day. So what do you plant there? So we're going to kind of spend the rest of this episode really talking about how to landscape and plan out for shade gardens.
Rachel
I might be the oddball here, but I would much rather do a shade garden and plan for a shade garden than a full sun garden. And I love it because you get so many different textures and you can plan for different environments versus full sun. You know, you're having full sun all the time and there are so many options. I don't do well with that atmosphere. Like I need just like a curtailed list of ten plants that I can do well in the shade versus 50, that the world is your oyster. And I love all the different native plants that we have that love shade, and there's nothing better for me than a shade garden.
Mikaela
I agree. I think it's one of the more peaceful environments to walk through. And maybe because trees have so much personality, we think of them as being real life entity, like a human being.
Rachel
Very true.
Mikaela
So we digress as usual, but a lot of people have concerns about trees affecting the structure of homes as a risk, in which case we might recommend a smaller tree. There's plenty of smaller trees or even really large shrubs that can still provide some of those cooling benefits without being this massive oak tree or something that you have to commit to that you only have a small piece of property or you're afraid that a limb is going to fall on your house and cause some destruction. So there are definitely options. Sometimes it does matter what species you choose. There are definitely some trees that are messier than others and trees that are more prone to dropping branches. And so if you are ever in consideration of a tree and you need some help, contact your local extension office. They'll be able to direct you.
Emily
I think it's important to note that with tree planting as well, very rarely are you going to buy trees that are full size. So it's sort of a like you're going to put in the tree, and most of the plants that are going to go around that tree are still going to need to be full sun or sun loving until that tree is well established. I mean, when you're talking about big oak trees and stuff like that, those trees are planted and are there for decades, I would almost say, before they have the capacity to really make what we would consider a full shade area. So just note that these are sort of work in progress. Now, that being said, if you purchased a house that already has well established trees and you don't want to get rid of them, there's definitely options for you besides just having some half dead turf grass underneath a beautiful tree, buying.
Rachel
A property and having it full sun and planting it's. The evolution of a garden and what you have when you first buy something isn't what you're going to have in 20 years. So it's about that full circle planning and how you want it to look in 20 years from now. It's just like any other life plan when you're doing your five year plan and ten year plan and all that kind of stuff.
Emily
My garden ten year plan.
Mikaela
I was going to say, I wish I was that organized, Rachel.
Emily
I feel like I could actually come up with a garden ten year plan better than a life ten year plan. Oh, man.
Rachel
Let me just hide my five year plan from you guys.
Mikaela
Oh, my gosh, Rachel, you're so organized.
Emily
Well, and I almost feel like the flip side of that is true. I know people who have full shade backyards. And if a bad storm comes through and some limbs go down or one or two trees get removed, then they suddenly go from a full shade to having pockets of full sunlight. So your garden can constantly be changing and that's great. And we're going to focus a lot on trees producing shade here. But again, things like fences, garages, sheds, your house itself will also create shade. So think about those environments kind of as well as we go through this episode and how you can integrate in some more interesting landscape plants than say, turf grass. Not that there's anything wrong with turf grass, but as we all know, it requires time and energy to manage and it doesn't always like shade environments.
Rachel
And this is going to be the month when your turf grass is going to look really bad. So shade gardening fits real in really well with this.
Mikaela
That's right. So when picking plants for a shade garden, you should still take all of those growing conditions into consideration. So not just shade, which is sunlight, but moisture, soil texture, PH, weather. Deer are a factor because in wooded environments you're probably going to see a lot more wildlife. So in terms of light, we're looking at full shade, which is all day with little to no direct sun. So that's pretty heavy. And there's a lot of things that don't grow very well in heavy shade, but there are still some. There's dappled sunlight or part sun or part shade, which could be receiving morning sun, which will be a little bit cooler than if something is just receiving afternoon sun. So these are plants that probably do about four to 6 hours of sunlight. And dappled shade or dappled sunlight is a little bit different. That's something that might receive more daytime, but it's going to be filtered sunlight, so it's going to be going through the leaves. It could be a tree that does not have a very thick canopy, so that's probably more on like the part sun side. And then of course, full sun are plants that prefer to be in full sun, but we're not talking about those today.
Mikaela
You will tend to find more dry shade because we have trees or we have existing plants that are already utilizing moisture and resources. So it's a little bit more difficult to find heavy moisture in those environments. Dry shade is a little bit more difficult than wet shade, and that's because it's going to be competing with those existing tree roots, especially things with surface roots like maples and other wet loving trees. But we are going to talk about planting under trees in a little bit. Also keep in mind that light patterns are going to change with the seasons. The sun does change aspect in the sky as we go through winter, so it's going to be lower in the horizon in an area that might be full sun in summer when the sun is really high in the sky, might have medium shade in spring and fall. So study your garden through the seasons to kind of accurately determine what type of shade is present. And I always find that, especially if you're a new homeowner observing and trying to absorb all this information a full calendar year before you really start investing heavily in plants and planting anything really serious, I think that's a really good time to kind of make those observations.
Mikaela
It's also good to keep in mind that many part shade or shade tolerant plants may not flower or grow as vigorously in deeper shade. So if it's a full sun plant and it says it tolerates shade, likely it's going to look a lot different in the shade than it is in full sun. And I think people don't keep that in mind, and they have the expectation that it's going to be just as flowering, just as full, and that isn't always the case. Physiologically, it's going to be different.
Emily
I think this is a great place to plug container gardening as well.
Mikaela
Good point.
Emily
So in the event that you can't necessarily plant things there, or maybe the plants you want can't be there because of the tree roots, maybe what you can do is have two or three containers that get placed around it and then get swapped out. So maybe they are sitting in full sun in spring and fall, but then come summertime when it's super hot, you move them underneath that shade tree, and it's also a great opportunity to really play around with what I think is really neat foliage. So looking for those varieties that have the patterns, the streaks, the stripes, white and bright colors tend to really pop in the shade, although you can also do vibrant colors there as well.
Mikaela
Yeah, it's a very good point, Emily, especially because even though I prefer the straight native species, there's a lot of different cultivars of hukura, and those have such a variety of different leaf color, from dark purples to caramels to bronze and even like lime green. There's just so many options.
Rachel
It's very true.
Emily
So when planting under a tree, particularly if you have one that has those shallow roots, you want to make sure that you're not damaging those roots when you're planting. Because you damage those surface roots, you could risk the stabilization of your tree and eventually could end up killing your tree, which would then get rid of all of the shade that you're putting these shade plants under. So ideally, you don't necessarily want to dig under and ruin these. So one option you have is to pick plants that are going to have a shallow root system themselves, and then you can just put down two to three inches of soil. You don't want to do more than that at any given time because that's going to shock either your tree and or increase the likelihood of diseases. So two to three inches of soil, and then you can put those shallow rooted plants in, and then you can put another two inches or so of mulch. But make sure that you are not creating mulch volcanoes around your tree, nor should you be planting these plants right up against the trunk of your tree. You definitely want to leave a good foot to foot and a half away from your trunk so that you're not increasing the likelihood of causing disease issues on your tree.
Emily
The one thing that you're also going to want to make sure you do is for that first year, you are going to want to set up some sort of irrigation system soaker hoses work great for this. And you're going to want to do our water deeply and infrequently during that first summer. You do not need to fertilize any of these plants. That two to three inches of soil should be enough fertilizer to get them through if need be. You can put some slow release 1010 fertilizer on for that second year, but if you put it on that first year before their roots are established, the tree roots are just going to come up and take it all. So you definitely don't want to do that.
Mikaela
And just to give you an example of how canny that trees are, I accidentally left a sealed plastic bag of compost under a red maple. And that red maple grew its roots up into the bag. I couldn't even use the compost. I just pulled the plastic out and just left it because it was so full of roots. Those red maples, because those red maples, man, they are, they're aggressive.
Emily
Trees are so weird and amazing.
Mikaela
I know, it's pretty impressive just how good they are at sensing moisture and growing towards that moisture. So it's really powerful. So we actually have a pretty deep list of plants that will handle shade. I think when people think about shade gardening and they feel like it's limited, it's only because the plants that grow in the shade are going to look a lot different than things that grow in the sun. They're not going to bloom as much. They're going to be more subtle. It's going to be more emphasis on foliage. It's a more complex understanding, which I love. I love shade plants a lot, and maybe I just can appreciate that. But give shade plants a chance.
Rachel
Hashtag.
Mikaela
Hashtag. Give shade plants a chance. And you guys feel free to chip in with any recommendations or anything.
Rachel
These are all my favorite.
Mikaela
Yeah, these include a lot of our favorite natives, and many of these are also deer resistant. Okay. I say deer resistant. Of course that means it's not deer proof. If they're hungry enough, they will try things. But for dry shade, what I really like is Tirella cordifolio, which is foam flower, and there's lots of different varieties of this as well. They have a really neat leaf as well as a flower, and they don't get very tall. So this counts as what we call a ground cover. So it's under like a foot or so. And these are really good at spreading by root. It's pretty shallow rooted. So this is great for under those red maples, maybe that have a lot of surface roots. We also really like blue mist flower, which was one of my native plants of the month, I think a couple of years ago. This actually handles just about any growing environment. I put it under dry shade, but it also will handle moist shade, full sun, dry sun. It handles almost everything. So if it can grow there, maybe it's something you want to utilize. I also recommend whitewood aster, which is a euribia devericata.
Mikaela
This is something I have growing under a silver maple, which is pretty dry shade, that has a lot of surface roots as well. And it spreads very easily by seed. I wouldn't call it aggressive, but it will spread. And then wild ginger, which is less aggressive. This is a really nice woodland plant. I actually wish I had more shade to grow wild ginger because I like it so much. The foliage is really pleasing. It's a slow spreader, but it will spread. And for moist shade, of course, ferns are a great option. That's probably going to be my number one thing that grows, and that's something that can also be grown for its foliage because it's so attractive and it has really nice texture. They tend to be a finer textured plant as well as many sedges. So sedges are going to look the most like turf grass without being turf grass. They can handle moist environments, which a lot of turf grass can't, and they handle a lot of shade. So a lot of turf grass also don't do shade. Soft rush, great blue lobelia, which is one of our all time favorites. It's a great one for shade as well as Golden Groundsel, which is packer aurea.
Mikaela
But this I say with a note of caution, it is very aggressive. So if you have environments where you need things to fill in, golden bronzeil is great because it will fill in very quickly and then things with more grass like appearance, because a lot of people ask for ground covers that look like grass. That's where I say sedges. Pennsylvania sedge in particular, because it tends to be a finer blade leaf, and it tends to be pretty short, so it'll stay about a foot tall. There's also something called poverty rush, and a lot of people consider this a weed, but I actually really like it because it grows in really tough environments. So it's something that kind of pops up in gravel driveways and stuff like that. But it can handle super dry shade and very sandy environments. I've seen it grow in my rain garden, so in wet environments. So this is a small type of juncus. Of course, I can't help myself. I have to mention some grasses. Bottle brush grass is something great for part shade, as well as northern sea oats, which will be aggressive as well. But they have a really attractive seed head and tufted hair.
Mikaela
Grass, which is a native grass, it almost acts as an evergreen. It actually doesn't die back very well in the winter. It dies back in maybe like March right before the new growth starts to occur. So I call it a semi evergreen, which is kind of nice for people who like turf grass year round. What about you guys? What other plants for shade do you like and or recommend?
Rachel
I have been adding a lot of Solomon's seal to my one tiny strip of shade because I love it and how it has these little tiny white know. I love that one. Michaela mentioned hookuras, just because there's a lot of different varieties of those. I love columbine, and I love it because it spreads and then I don't have to do as much work. And it's a beautiful little pollinator plant. Of course, ferns, your cinnamon fern, your ostrich fern, your Christmas fern. They're all like just a beautiful mix of ferns that you can add. And Michaela mentioned Pennsylvania Sedge. I keep trying to plant more trees so that in like 20 years I can plant some Pennsylvania sedge just because of how beautiful it is, how it flops down. It reminds me of those troll dolls that we had in the know. Like, their hair stands up straight and then it just flops know. It's kind of wispy and flops love. I love that. Emily, what about you?
Emily
This isn't native, but hostas, I think, are just such an easy plant sometimes. So if you want to do something that's very low maintenance, they divide and grow so quickly, and then you can share them around. They obviously are not native, so you're not going to get as much of the beneficial environmental effect of them. But if it's between bare ground or a plant, I think they work.
Mikaela
And there's so many types of hostas. There's like the elephant ear ones. There's like the tiny mouse ear ones. I love all of them. They're just fantastic. They're also deer candy, so it's hard for deer environments.
Emily
So I don't have deer in my neighborhood. I have rabbits, and my rabbits don't seem to eat them.
Mikaela
Oh, good.
Emily
I think one of the neat things about them, I have a master gardener who has a full shade backyard, and she has basically used hostas and hydranges as a way, so playing with different shades and variations of the leaves to create a very amazingly interesting garden that you wouldn't always think of since it's full shade.
Mikaela
Very cool.
Rachel
Since we're talking about non natives. Heliboris is another favorite shade loving perennial that I like to incorporate a little bit. And the deer really don't like it because the leaves can be kind of rough, but it can get a little spready. I'm not going to say it's aggressive because I don't really think it's aggressive. It just can spread after like ten years, you can have little babies. They're beautiful and they bloom really early in the winter. It's probably one of the first things that blooms in our garden. So, like February it's starting to bloom and you can get some that have like pretty deep purple flowers or white in that pink family. So it's a good addition if you want to cover up some bare ground and you can't find a native that we've suggested.
Emily
I really love oak leaf hydranges, which tend to do really great in a shade. These ones are really great native species. They like light to medium shade, and they can get to be about four to 8ft tall and about five to 3ft wide. So again, plant them for their mature height and width, not for itty bitty plants that they are in their pots now. And they have really beautiful white flowers. In the summer, they do tend to prefer more of your moist, well drained soil, so this may not be one to plant right around your trees. This might look nicer and say like a fence that's getting shade throughout the day or is blocking out the sun throughout the day.
Rachel
I love oak leaf hydrangeas because they have that deep scarlet foliage in the fall. Yeah, I feel like it's just one of those plants that add so much visual texture to a shade garden.
Mikaela
They just pop and it's multi season.
Rachel
Yeah, very much.
Mikaela
It's got beautiful fall color. The flowers dry in persist. The bark is really cool. It's a good plant.
Rachel
I like putting it with Virginia Sweet spire as well, because they both have that red foliage in the a. It's a really pretty addition, and it lays suckers too. So I know Emily said plant for the size that it's going to be, but you need to increase that just a little bit because you're going to form a little colony if it likes the spot that it's in.
Mikaela
I'm the plant sucker.
Rachel
I planted 110 years ago, and it's huge. It surpasses the eight foot by three foot rule, and it's about ten foot, and it's spread about ten foot. So if anybody needs an extra plant, just let me know because I just dig up the extras all the time and pot them and give them away.
Emily
I will gladly take the suckers. I'll put them on my porch. That's probably the only part that has enough shade for them.
Rachel
But if you don't want to get the full oak leaf hydrangea, there is the peewee that doesn't get as big. It gets about four foot by three foot. So you can have that as like a shrub that you're putting next to a fence like Emily said, or next to your house. And it won't get as large as the straight oak leaf hydrangea.
Mikaela
Some shrubs that do really well shaded environments tend to be a lot of the holly family. So Ilex globra, Ilex verticolata, which is the deciduous winterberry and even the tree holly, ilexopaca does really well in shady environments. Talking about other evergreens that might be in shaded environments. Northern bayberry, and that's pennsylvanica. I call that semi evergreen mountain laurel. Yeah, mountain laurel, which arguably has one of the best blooms for any shade plant available out there. There's a lot of plants with sweet in the name that do well in the shade for some reason. Virginia sweet spires, sweet shrub, Clether, almifolia, all of these do really well in shade, as well as I found arrowwood viburnum also does well in the shade. Arrowwood is the one I grow at home, but there's black haw viburnum, there's maple leaf viburnum, I all find those in the shade.
Rachel
I planted about ten Virginia sweet spires last year. And the bumblebees love these things. And not just bumblebees. I am finding so many different pollinators on these. It's amazing. So I planted them last spring. Didn't really have very many flowers because, you know, first year, but this year they've gone gangbusters and awesome. It's amazing to see just the variety pollinators that I'm getting on them. And they also spread a little bit. So if you're looking for a native shrub that kind of will set its roots, almost like how a hydrangea will touch the ground and set some roots, that's one that you can easily root and give away to people.
Mikaela
Yeah. And now trees, there's actually quite a few trees that do really well. We call them understory trees, but they tend to be a little bit smaller, maybe they do really well as a focus plant. I think they have a lot of value in that. So fringe tree is one of them. That's chiananthus virginica.
Rachel
I love fringe tree.
Mikaela
Oh my gosh. And it smells amazing. It does pretty well in the shade. Flowering dogwood is something that does well in part shade as well. Even though a lot of people tend to plant it out in full sun as like a feature tree. It actually prefers like dappled or part shade red buds, which is arguably one of my favorite trees of all time. Yes, you'll find those. Sassafras is another one. All of these are like my favorite. Me too. Sweet bay magnolia is another really good one that you wouldn't expect to find in shade, but it does really well. And it's also one of those plants that does like wet to dry soil types. So it's pretty tolerant of a lot of things.
Rachel
I have found that my one witch hazel that has survived likes more part shade.
Mikaela
That's another great one. Yeah.
Rachel
Because in everything it says will tolerate full sun. Fun, but it really doesn't want full sun.
Mikaela
Yeah, anytime it says will tolerate all that means. Is it really doesn't like it, but it will begrudgingly grow.
Rachel
I will tolerate full sun, but I'd much rather be in the shade.
Mikaela
That's right.
Rachel
Plants with complex emotions.
Mikaela
That's right.
Emily
Yeah. Basically, that's what we are. Awesome. So that is a great list of plants to consider for putting in your.
Mikaela
Own shade garden and the best way to stay cool.
Emily
It's the native plant of the month with Michaela.
Mikaela
All right, is it time for native plant of the month? I think it is, because I'm going to hit you with a hit us with a curveball. Yeah, because I'm not sure I've ever had a fern as a native plant of the month, and I can't believe that because I love ferns. And in particular, this is my all time favorite fern, northern maiden hair fern, which is antiantum pedatum. So, again, this might be the first fern I've introduced as native plant of the month. I'm just kicking myself because ferns are so fantastic. So this is a perfect pick for plants that love shade, because most ferns prefer part to full shade, except sensitive fern, which can do full sun. And the maiden hair fern is no exception. It does like rich, moist soil that you would find on, like, a mature hardwood forest floor. So lots of deep leaf litter that's been kind of decomposed for a while. It likes adequate moisture, so it's not going to handle dry shade very well. But the appearance of this fern is the most notable. It has a very delicate and lacy appearance that makes it very beautiful for the landscape.
Mikaela
Unlike some of the larger fern, this one only stands about one to one and a half feet tall, if that. I'm giving it a pretty large margin. It's pretty short. I wouldn't consider it a ground cover because it doesn't grow real close to the ground, but it's a very beautiful, lower growing plant. So it has black midribs that unfurl in the spring, and they have fronds that are full of, like, these scalloped leaflets in a very bright green. So it's that black midrib that makes it really kind of stand out, because the green is so bright. And this main stem has what we call a horseshoe shape, making it one of the more easily identifiable ferns in the landscape. Even people who aren't really good with plant identification should be able to figure that this one looks a little bit different than the other ferns. And so maiden hair fern is a very slow spreader, but it does send out rhizomes, and you can divide them over the course of time, and they create little small colonies. And like I said, the appearance of this fern makes it my absolute favorite, and I think even stuffy formal gardeners will smooth at the appearance of maiden hair fern.
Rachel
I love finding this fern.
Mikaela
I know it's the best.
Rachel
It's such a beautiful little fern.
Mikaela
It is, because some of those ferns get really big, like the cinnamon fern. Ostrich fern. Yes. And they can look more like Jurassic Parky. This is not Jurassic Park. This is more for a gardener that likes a subdued environment.
Rachel
I think it pairs really well with mouse ear hostas because it's so tiny and like some foam flour mixed in with it because you have three different textures right there.
Emily
Exactly.
Mikaela
And you know what? I think a lot of people in shady environments, an easy combination is ferns and hostas. And it's like, you can't go wrong with that combination. Together, they just kind of create a really nice environment.
Emily
What's buzing? It's the bug of the month with Emily. Bug of the month. It's the bug of the month. Okay. So while Michaela and Rachel are finding some cool shade to hang out in this July, my butt is going to the beach because that's where I like to be to beat the summer.
Mikaela
I don't does it beat the summer heat or you just meet the heat?
Emily
I meet the heat there, but you got the cool water and the breeze.
Mikaela
Arguably, that's true.
Rachel
I mean, I love the shade, but I will sit on the beach all day.
Emily
So my bug of the month this month is the eastern beach tiger beetle. I'll probably talk about tiger beetles as a general group or some other ones that you'll find in your garden at a later time period, but these ones are distinct in that they like to live in that sandy habitat along shorelines. And distinctly, they need shorelines that have a long stretch of beach. And I don't mean, like, along the water. I mean a long stretch between the land and the water to live along. Tiger beetles in general have kind of a stealth like body. They're going to have long legs. They've got large mandibles because they're predators, and their eyes kind of bug out a little bit. And the eastern tiger beetle is going to be mostly sand colored with a shiny bronze or green head, and then its wings are going to be a light, tan, sandy kind of color, oftentimes with some dark line markings. They are very good at camouflaging, and they're very fast. So these are a tricky bug to see and an even harder bug to catch. But you shouldn't be catching these because they're actually listed as threatened under the endangered species Ask, so it's illegal to catch them.
Emily
They get to be about one inch in length. Their range used to be all the way along the Eastern seaboard. So there's four subspecies, and depending on what subspecies you're at, like, the northeastern one would be all the way up from Maine all the way down to Maryland. And then we'd have the southern one would go from Virginia all the way down to Florida. And then there's a species that can be found along the Gulf Coast of Mexico. But unfortunately, due to habitat loss because of beaches eroding or people developing on them. Most of these subspecies are also considered threatened. So as of now, we actually only know of a few places where they can actively be found for research to be done. One of them being along the Chesapeake Bay here in Maryland, as well as the eastern shore of Virginia. And Martha's Vineyards Island off the coast of Massachusetts has a small population as well. So these guys are kind of unique in that they have a fairly complex cycle. So there are beetles, so they do the larvae a pube and adult stage. But these guys take two years in order to complete their life cycle.
Emily
The adults are going to emerge in kind of mid June through August, so they'll emerge in July. And you'll see them potentially at the beach, if you go to a beach, that's very undisturbed. And they will forge for small invertebrates, including flies, ants and other arthropods in that kind of inner tidal zone. So they're not going to be down like in the water. But you can also sometimes find them scavenging on dead fish or dead crabs or seaweed. Anything that's kind of washed up, they will scavenge on. They tend to mate around mid July through early August when the weather is warm and humid. The female has these special sensory hairs on the base of her abdomen that will help determine soil moisture. And after she's made it, when she finds an area of sand that is the right moisture content, she will lay her eggs there. The eggs will hatch in mid August and the larvae will make a vertical burrow where it will secure itself using hooks along its abdomen. The larvae are also predators and they'll prey on, again, other insects and small invertebrates that are sort of living in that inner tidal to above tidal zone.
Emily
Again, they're not going to be like where the actual water is going to be, but they're going to be right closer to think like sand dunes, the area between the sand dunes and where the tide would be. They have three instars before they pupate and they usually reach the second instar by September. In that first year, as winter approaches, they will actually move to higher ground in the beach to protect themselves from storm activity, wave actions. After overwintering, they'll emerge out in late May through June and then they'll continue to scavenge on flies, arthropods, other things. They'll molt again into their third instar. They'll overwinter the following spring, they'll pupate in their burrows and then they emerge as adults and they meet and the whole cycle happens all over again. So their decline was mainly been caused by disturbance to their habitat. Again, this beach area is kind of very specific. In addition to natural erosion happening in this beach area, you also have human issues, particularly things like pollution, plastics in our oceans, as well as any pesticide runoff. And then off road vehicles have been found to be kind of a really harmful thing for them because they can crush those larvae burrows, basically killing the larvae.
Emily
And because it takes two years, it's not easy for them to bounce back. So, yeah, if you want to learn more about these guys, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation actually has a really nice website that has pictures of them as well. I think they're a very cool looking beetle.
Mikaela
They are really cool.
Rachel
They're pretty adorable.
Emily
They are.
Rachel
Get your tip of the month here with Rachel.
Emily
Rachel, do we have some garden tips for this month?
Rachel
Of course we do. We have some tips. All right. If you haven't noticed, summer is officially here, and the hot, dry weather can do significant damage to our plants, our gardens, and our cells. So hopefully I can give you some tips to help you along the way. So Japanese beetles are heavy right now, and they're feeding on your knockout roses. So if you want to get rid of those, just brush them into a bucket of soapy water, just hold it underneath the leaves that they're on, and just brush them right off, and they're going to drown. I'm going to deter you from using Japanese beetle traps because studies have shown that the traps attract more beetles to your landscape, resulting in increased damage. So don't use the trap. Spotted lantern fly adults may be found feeding on hosts, especially Tree of Heaven. If you find any spotted lantern fly adults or egg masses, take a picture. Report these to the Maryland Department of Agriculture and dispose of the insect. And you can do this by catching them, throwing them in the freezer, crushing them. Whatever your method of disposal, you know, please don't spray them know we don't want you spraying something on them that isn't licensed for them to be sprayed on.
Rachel
If you didn't mulch your landscape in the spring, you can do so now. Mulch helps keep the weeds down. It helps conserve moisture, and it should be applied to about one to two inches in depth and keep them away from your trees or your shrubs. We don't want to see any mulch volcanoes here. Create a nice little doughnut around your trees, but don't let the mulch touch your tree bag. Worm caterpillars are very active, so you want to look for little bags crawling around your evergreen trees and shrubs. And you can spray them with BT, which is a microbial insecticide, by mid July. So if you're hitting, like, July 15 and you listen to this episode, you're probably a little bit too far into their life cycle to spray them with BT, and that's when hand picking really comes into play and picking those bags off and crushing them. If you're gung ho on spraying an insecticide, you can spray with something that contains spinocid. So if you have chrysanthemums and asters, you want to cut those back this month, and that helps prevent them from becoming too leggy and blooming early. If not trimmed, they will bloom later this month, not in the fall.
Rachel
If you have a yard full of garden ornaments like I do, hashtag Garden Kids toys, now is the time to patrol your yard for mosquito breeding sites. At least twice a week, check and remove water that's standing, and this could be from your recycle cans, toys, flower pot, saucers, pet bowls, waiting pools, tires, tarps, sheet, plastic, you name it. Mosquitoes can breed in any little tiny droplet of water. It's also really important to check your downspouts and any of those extenders and make sure that you have pantyhose around the outside so that the mosquitoes can't get in there and use that as a breeding site as well. Or if you put pantyhose on last year and you haven't checked it in a while, it's time to check it and change it out. If you have a vegetable garden, it's time to harvest onions. When the tops dry back, let them dry in the garden and dig them up and tie the stems together and hang them in your garage or an attic with good air circulation, and then store those in a cool, dry place for winter's use. Tomato hornworms are really active right now.
Rachel
I love to find these guys. They have a short little lifespan, about three weeks. But here in Maryland, where our hot, dry summers are like increasing in length, we can probably get around two generations. So during their three week lifespan, these caterpillars gain more than 1000 times their weight. Fun fact of the day?
Mikaela
I believe it because they get massive.
Rachel
They get massive. And a really fun way to hunt for these guys, because they camouflage so well, is you can turn your smartphone into a blacklight camera, just look on YouTube for some tutorials and then go caterpillar hunting at night. So much fun. And they glow. Those little white stripes just make them glow with a black light. And even their eggs will glow with a black light as well. So it's a lot of fun to find them at night.
Emily
If you happen to come across some tomato hornworms that are covered already with parasitic wasps, go ahead and leave them, because that caterpillar is basically no longer feeding in your garden. And all those little wasp eggs will hatch out and go parasitize other hornworms. I know a lot of people sometimes will hand pick them and destroy them. But if you come across one that's covered in little tiny wasp bags, leave it.
Rachel
And those wasps aren't going to sting you or your children or your pets. They have a specific job, and that is to terrorize hormones.
Emily
And they're very good at it.
Rachel
Yeah. So what this parasitic wasp does, it finds a hornworm that it likes and then it flies up to it and then stings it. And while it's stinging it, it injects its eggs into the hornworm. And the larvae hatch and eat the insides. And then when they're ready, they form a little cocoon outside of the hornworm's body, and then they will stay there and until it's time for them to hatch out. So they're effectively eating the hornworm from the inside out. Nature is a cruel, cruel bee.
Mikaela
Pretty brutal.
Emily
Yeah, nature is amazing.
Rachel
Man squash vine boar larvae are feeding on the inside of your pumpkin and squash right now. If the leaves are wilting or if you see holes on those stems with some sawdust like material so that's frasp that's larvae poop or droppings around the hole, you can slit the stem with a razor and remove the larvae. Put some soil mound around that injured stem. Usually when I see the wilting and the frass, I automatically rip out that plant and put it in a black trash bag and let it bake in the sun, because inevitably, my squash plants get hit, and to me, squash are a dime a dozen. I can plant some more seeds and be okay. My arch nemesis of the garden is out right now, and I say that with a deep seated hate of squash bugs.
Mikaela
Yes.
Emily
That was another option for bug of the month I thought of doing. Rachel and I decided that, nah, no, I'm going to do this cool beach tiger beetle instead.
Rachel
I hate squash bugs, and I probably say this every single July. I can't express to you the dislike I have of this bug, and it leaves little tiny copper to eggs on the underside of your squash plant or on your stems, and they hatch in about ten days. And then the nymphs mature in about four to six weeks. And both the adults and the nymphs hide under leaves when they're disturbed or in your mulch or anywhere in your raised bed, and they give me the heebie GB's, and they effectively just I can't even describe I hate them. And for that reason, I did not plant squash this year because I'm trying to rid my garden of squash bugs. So I'm giving myself a two year hiatus of squash plants or anything in the squash family because I don't want them in my garden anymore. And they're so hard to get rid of.
Mikaela
They might be one of the number one asked about pests, if I had to guess.
Rachel
Yeah, they are, because everyone has them, and they're so hard to get rid of. They can overwinter in leaf debris, and if you don't clean out your garden in time, and they're just so hard to get rid of. I hate them.
Mikaela
Do you hate them, Rachel? I wasn't sure.
Rachel
On a level of one to ten.
Mikaela
It'S 100 rachel hates them with a.
Emily
Passion of a thousand burning thumbs.
Mikaela
Exactly.
Rachel
That's where I am in life. If you're like me, I'm already thinking about my fall garden. So it's time to start your seeds for your cold weather crops. That includes broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts. If you like a good thing of Brussels sprouts, now's the time to get those started so that they're ready to go in in September. So I'm going to get my 50 cell tray with some soilless mix and some seeds and start them and let them germinate. Okay, but you also want to make sure that you're protecting them from any type of insect that likes cold weather crops. So I always put a floating row cover on them so that they're not getting eaten up.
Mikaela
Well, that's all we have for this episode. Listener we hope you enjoyed it and will tune in next month for more garden tips. If you have any garden related questions, please email us at umegardenpodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at gardentimepodcast. That's garden. T-H-Y-M-E for more information about the University of Maryland Extension and these topics, please check out the University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center website at go. Umd.edu backslash. Thanks for listening, and have fun getting down and dirty in your garden. Goodbye.
Rachel
Goodbye. The Garden Time Podcast is a monthly podcast brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Michaela bowley, senior agent associate for talbot county. Rachel rhodes, senior agent associate for queen anne county, and emily zogel, senior agent associate for dorchester county university.
Emily
Programs, activities and facilities are available to all without regards to race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, national origin, political affiliation, physical or mental disability, religion protected, veteran status, genetic information, personal appearance, or any other legally protected classroom.
Mikaela
Don't do it, Zola.
Rachel
Do it, Zola. Do it.
Mikaela
She's given like she's going to knock something over on purpose watching me. Okay, good. She's going. Bye.