604 April Dandelions the Lion's Tooth of Weeds

Hey Listener, 

This month's episode discusses the most popular weed on the block:  the Dandelion. Dandelion, or Taraxacum officinale, is an extraordinary plant. We're sharing some fun facts its history and chatting about why some people like them and others dislike them.

We also have our Native Plant of the Month: RAMPS! (Allium tricoccum), Bug of the Month: Spiny witch hazel gall aphid (Hamamelistes spinosus), and Monthly garden tips. 

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!

You can take our survey here.

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 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.

Chapters

• 27:44 Native Plant of the Month
• 33:30 Bug of the Month
• 38:13 Garden Tips of the Month

Transcript

Garden Thyme Podcast Transcript
 S6:E04 Dandelions the Lion's Tooth of Weeds ( April 2025)

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.  
 

Mikaela

Hello, listener. Welcome to the University of Maryland extension presents the Garden Thyme podcast, where we talk about getting down and dirty in your garden. We're your hosts. I'm Mikaela.

Rachel

I'm Rachel.

Emily

And I'm Emily.

Mikaela

And in this month's episode, we are featuring dandelions.

Emily

I love dandelions. I feel like we all love dandelions.

Mikaela

I think maybe you love them more as a child, but something happens when we become adults and you start thinking they're the enemy. So whether you love them, maybe you hate them, but very few people have neutral feelings about dandelions. That's how I look at it. It's a debate as old as time for the modern homeowner, especially if you strive for turf purity. You want that like nice green carpet-looking landscape. But regardless, the common dandelion is a fascinating plant with a really long history. And we thought we would go ahead and do a deep dive and share nothing but dandelion fun facts in this episode. You know we love fun facts.

Rachel

We do.

Emily

When I think dandelions, they're one of the first signs of spring. I started seeing dandelions in mid-March. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Mikaela

They're one of the earliest blooming plants that are not trees. That's true.

Rachel

So the dandelion or terexacon, a fish now is an extraordinary plant. The name comes from the French phrase, dense de lion. I don't speak French people.

Mikaela

Dense de lion. Sorry, that was way cartoonish. I apologize to all of our French-speaking listeners. Obviously, we are not cultured. Exactly. Forgive us. It's a French term.

Rachel

You guys know that I love to dissect the meaning of words. And dandelion means teeth of a lion. This is in reference to the jagged edges of the leaves that resemble the jaws and teeth of a lion. Another common name is puffball, which refers to the seed stage of the flower head that makes it both fun to play with and extremely frustrating for landscape maintenance everywhere. The genus names terexacum means bitter herb in Arabic. It is a perennial herb or weed. It is non-native to North America. And like we mentioned, the flowering produces vibrant yellow flowers. It's a member of with that Asterix family, and it produces a long tack root, much to the dismay of gardeners everywhere. And it has a very milky latex sac, so that may cause some irritation when you're pulling it?

Emily

Dandelions, again, are a really common early season flower. They are that pop of yellow that we get to see in early spring. That just lets us know that winter is are finally over and things are starting to bloom. They're one of the first visual cues, I think, because trees will start doing their pollen around the same time, but their flowers are so much more subtle than that yellow pop on someone's, probably still yellow a yellowy brown lawn because most of our turf grasses don't green up yet. Flowers can start forming as early as late March, and they can actually continue through the fall depending on the weather. So you can have dandelions booming throughout the entire season. And of course, people either love or hate them. And there's always this ongoing debate about their beneficialness in the environment versus their woody habits and behaviors. So we're going to We're going to investigate both aspects of the dandelion right now. So because it is one of the first things that blooms in that early spring season, there is some value that they have for spring foraging bees for pollen and nectar. Now, they are non-native, so you're not going to have a lot of our specialized bees feeding on it.

Emily

This is going to be a lot more of our generalist. I tend to always see bumblebees and honeybees on them. The value of their nectar and their pollen is not necessarily as high as some of our native blooming crops or plants would be. But again, it's still providing them with some food source when you oftentimes don't have a lot in the landscape. Another neat benefit that these plants have is that they have a very deep tap root. Their tap root is usually anywhere from 6 to 12 inches, which if you have compacted soil, that can really help to break up and aerate the soil, which, especially a lot of new home bills that only have turf grass on it, often has lots of highly compactable soil. So if you have heavy clay, maybe dandelions in your front yards for a few years to help break up that soil isn't the worst thing. I think turf grass roots only go what? A few inches, Mikaela?

Mikaela

Yeah, like five or six if the soil is healthy.

Emily

Yeah. So this is definitely going a little bit deeper than your turf grass roots. In addition to breaking that up and helping to aerate, they would bring up a lot of the nutrients that are further down, put it into their leaves, their flowers, their stocks. And then as those decompose, either by mowing them and putting them back down or just them naturally decomposing as the flower and the leaves die out during the winter, you're bringing up some of those deeper nutrients.

Mikaela

I would also say that dandelions get a bad rap when in fact, sometimes they are an indicator that there are other issues at work, such as you just said, like maybe it's a poor soil. So they are opportunists. They will go where there is space to go. They're really good at growing in adverse conditions. So if you have a lot of them growing or you're having some of these issues, it could be that your soil is more at fault than the plant itself. I mean, this will grow in cracks in the sidewalk. So they're used to pretty terrible conditions.

Emily

They're pretty hardy little plants when you think about it.

Rachel

That's just another indicator for us as homeowners and gardeners to take a soil test just to see, Hey, I have a lot of dandelions this year, or I've had a lot of dandelions for the last five years. There's something going on that I need to test my soil for.

Emily

And that's, of course, assuming that you're someone who doesn't want dandelions in your turf, unlike someone like me who purposely goes out and takes all the footballs and smashes them into my turf grass because I want more yellow pops in springtime. Nothing makes me happier is to have all those beautiful tops of yellow underneath my red bud tree when it's blooming, because I have black-eye Susans underneath it, but they don't start blooming until after the red bud is done. So I love having that first pop of color. And unfortunately They come back when you mow them over, which I like. But again, I like having dandelions in my growth grass.

Rachel

So Emily's team dandelion, everyone.

Emily

I am. I'm pro dandelion. That being said, I and my love for dandelions do not stand for everybody. And there are a lot of people that don't like dandelions because they want that really nice, lush, green lawn. And in this case, Dandelions can be detrimental. Every single plant can produce up to 20,000 and viable seeds. Interesting enough, Dandelions don't have to be pollinated in order to produce viable seeds either. Each seed is found within a small little light brown fruit, which is the achine. That's what's attached to that feathery pappus on that splender stock. So when you go to blow that dandelion cliff that we've all seen, and there's the little brown bit, again, that's the fruit, and then it's attached to that. So that's not the actual seed itself. It will then land and then have to break out of that fruit. But that's neat to see that it's not just a naked sea flowing around on those wingy days. And then, like Mikaela mentioned, dandelions are pretty highly adaptable, and they flourish in a wide variety of environments. And interesting enough, some people will grow dandelions, and there are some places where it is illegal to purposefully grow dandelions, including Pablo, Colorado, Calgary, Canada.

Mikaela

I think, at least in Calgary, it's illegal to grow dandelions purposely. And in Pueblo, I think it's a little bit more of a, not a flexible law, but it's a law basically saying anything over a certain height. And I think dandelions are included in that.

Emily

Which is weird because dandelions don't get super tall.

Mikaela

Right. I think it's 10 inches is the...

Emily

And I'm sure lots of people have homeowners associations that probably have rules about dandelions. Well, they probably treat them.

Mikaela

Yeah, treat for them, I mean. Medicinal and nutritional value. So of course, anytime we talk about eating plants or bugs or anything like that, we have to have a disclaimer. So we are not nutritionists and cannot verify the medicinal value of the information shared. This is just documented on some resources that we found online. Although many of them are reputable, we can put those in the show notes. Any consumption of dandelion products should be discussed with your health care professional prior to use. So that being said, it's really interesting because all parts of this plant are edible. However, the most commonly used are parts of the leaves and the root. So interesting fun fact. I love fun facts. During World War II, the roots were actually wasted and used as a coffee alternative, of course, because coffee rations were pretty low. And a claim is that dandelion root contains more antioxidants and nutrients in comparison to coffee. So it may not taste the same, but purportedly it has much more nutritional value.

Emily

The question is, what's the caffeine level? It's probably zero.

Mikaela

And I know they used to do the same with chicory. And I don't know if chicory has the same antioxidant or nutritional value, but dandelion root does. So maybe something to try. So young leaves are eaten raw, so they're very commonly used in salads. I've had them before. They don't taste very different from any other leafy green, to be honest. It's not like they have a strong flavor, or I would taste it and be like, Oh, yeah, that's dandelion. Whereas the older leaves are probably best cooked. They get a little tough, maybe a little stringy because they have a pretty strong midrib in the middle. The flowers are also edible, and they create a festive salad. Now, I have not eaten a raw dandelion flower, so I can't speak to that. I don't know if you guys have.

Emily

I've had one that was fried.

Mikaela

Oh, well, there you go.

Emily

Was it good? It was crunchy. Yeah, it was good. I mean, it was- Fried?

Mikaela

Now, another common occurrence you'll see is dandelion wine. It's a very common home brew that people do. Again, I do not recommend doing it on your own, but if you find it commercially available, it might be interesting to try dandelion wine. I have tried it. I'm not a huge fan of wine in general anyways, but I did not prefer the taste myself.

Rachel

Yeah, I feel like that's one of those things that people make. I wonder how many dandelions you need to collect to make dandelion wine.

Mikaela

Oh, gosh, look it up. Look it up real quick. There's actually recipes from, I think it's the National Medicine Library, from NIH. But they have a medicinal library online, and they have a lot of dandeline recipes available. I did not include that in our episode today, but that is available online. You can find it.

Rachel

All right, so in fact, you need roughly four quarters or 16 cups of dandeline flower heads to make a single gallon batch of dandeline wine.

Mikaela

Well, a gallon is quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. I actually don't think it's that much. I was expecting more, to be honest. But I guess they- Me too. Soak it like a tincture or something. Anyways.

Rachel

Yeah.

Mikaela

But all that being said, let's get back to the nutritional value, because it is considered a rich source of vitamins A, B complex, C, and D. So it's actually quite a few vitamins, maybe more so than some of the other salad greens that we eat. And it's a source of minerals such as iron, potassium, and zinc, which are all good for your immune system. And the leaves and roots were traditionally and still are considered a mild laxative. So eat in moderation, just like anything, right? And the young leaves are high in calcium, potassium, and iron. So maybe a spinach alternative, if spinach isn't your thing, which it isn't mine. But there's a lot of really interesting medical studies and papers on the health benefits associated with dandelion. And it also includes the study of anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties that they use in medicines. So it really is a fascinating plant, and it does have some research to back it up. It's not just us saying it's cool. Although, again, we have to place our warning here. Now that we've talked about all the benefits of it, you should not wild harvest or forge dandelions in public places due to pesticide use, exposure to animal feces or any other dangerous contaminants.

Mikaela

Even ones on your yard, you have to make sure that nothing has been applied and that it isn't too close to the roadways because roadways can be a high source of contaminants. So just be very aware. We recommend, if you're going to consume dandelions, maybe grow them purposefully and include dandelions in an edible garden and treat them much like you would any other vegetable or food crop. And same handling techniques, being cleaned and washing them and everything like that. And like Rachel mentioned earlier, that latexy milky sap can also be an irritant to the skin. So anybody allergic to latex should also avoid handling fresh dandelions or the stems at least because of that latex in the sap.

Emily

I just love these flowers. I know that they look ugly on people's yards, but I think yards look ugly. They're so cute.

Rachel

You guys know I like going down the rabbit hole and figuring out why something's meeting something or how many dandelions do you need to make dandelion wine. But I also love the history of plants. Dandy lions are native to Asia and Europe. And the presence of dandy lions in North America dates back to our earliest colonists who brought the plant to North America on the Mayflower because because of its nutritional and medicinal values. Actually, ancient Greek naturalists recommended that the herb be taken as a tonic for the treatment of freckles and liver spots on the skin. Who would want to get rid of freckles? They're so adorable.

Mikaela

Well, I think so, too. But I think our standards of beauty have changed over history.

Rachel

That's true. Beauty is completely different today than it was thousands of ago. The plants were also consumed and turned into wine to help prevent scurvy, as well as a diuretic and a laxative, like we just talked about. So historically, dandelions have been used therapeutically, and that can be tied back to Arabian, Chinese, and ancient Indian medicine in the 10th and 11th century. William Lang Ham, a physician and herbalist, included dandelions as a remedy for ailments, including baldness, in his 16th century book, England Garden Health.

Emily

So the question is, are you rubbing dandelions in your head to get hair, or are you brewing them and drinking dandelion wine?

Rachel

I'm going to say wine.

Emily

You're going to say the wine? Okay. I like the idea of people rubbing dandelions on their bald head.

Rachel

Because then they would be yellow.

Emily

Yeah.

Mikaela

Right. Did you do that in the elementary school where you would go up to somebody and you'd use a flower to make a yellow streak on their arm? That's what I'm imagining somebody doing to the top of their head.

Rachel

All right. So as we mentioned, in the early 1600s, Dandelions were brought to North America by colonists as a plant. Mikolaus Culpeffer, an English botanist, herbalist, and physician, included dandelions in his 1789 book about the benefits of dandelions to the liver, gallbladder, and spleen. And that book was called Culpeppers, English Physician, and Complete Herbal. Dandelions have also been referenced as part of the 1957 American culture in Ray Bradbury's novel Dandelion Wine. And many of the recipes and research studies continue to explore the benefits of dandelions in modern medicine.

Emily

So I looked it up in the link that Mikaela Billy gave, and it was neither drinking the dandelion wine nor rubbing the flowers in your head. It was making a juice and rubbing the juice on your head.

Mikaela

Because that makes more sense.

Emily

It does. And you would rather it down on your head and your eyebrows, and it would cause new growth to grow.

Mikaela

My favorite was trying to read the summary or synopsis of the book, and it's written in Old-timey English. It was fascinating. We've come so far. It makes me wonder how much further we're going to go. What will they discover about dandelions next?

Emily

So now that we know about some of the health benefits and that they could be nutritious, Mikaela, do you want to tell us a little bit about how we could grow dandelions if we want to try them?

Mikaela

Sure. So first of all, I didn't know that I would try and want to grow dandelions purposefully. But here I am after doing all this research, and I'm feeling really inspired. There's actually quite a few dandelion varieties that are different species of dandelion that are not as prolific. So there isn't the same concern of them exploding into the landscape or anything. So the pink dandelion, which just like the name implies, it has pink petals on the outside and like a yellow center, is a less prolific cousin to the common dandelion. Lion, and it is totally giving me Birgerton vibes. I would put this in my tea cup and feel fancy. So if you want to grow dandelions intentionally, you got to sow the seeds on the soil surface or lightly covered with soil in early spring. So this could be four to six weeks before the last frost. And you can do this through late summer. So honestly, just like you might into it, dandelions are not necessarily hard to grow, right? They do it very well on their own in the wild. But they should be able to germinate in about 10 days at 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mikaela

And if you're going to plant them in a row, space the plants about 6 to 9 inches apart in rows that are about 12 inches apart. So you would treat it much like any other crop, right? So give it space in a vegetable garden, just like you would vegetables. And again, those early greens or those young leaves, super nutritious, easy to toss into a salad, and it grows pretty well throughout the growing season. I mean, most leafy greens are out of season once we get through spring, you get into summer and everything bolts, but these should do just fine. But if growing them purposefully is not your cup of tea. Emily, do you want to tell us a little bit about how to control it instead?

Emily

Yeah. So there's several reasons why people would want to control dandelions. If it's not your esthetic, that's That's basically fine. Maybe you are in a HOH and you need that pristine lawn, or you like the way that a pristine lawn looks, or you're just not loving the way dandelions are. That's okay. There are several ways to go about controlling them. Mulch It's going to be a really good non-chemical management option. So especially if you have them around flower beds, you can put on a slightly thicker layer of mulch. Now, we still don't want to make mulch volcanoes, but if you can cut the dandelions as close down to the soil as possible and then put about an inch and a half to two inches of mulch over top that will discourage it from coming up. And then if it does come back up, it's a lot easier for you to yank it out or pull it out or again dig down and cut it back at the soil level and then recover it with mulch. Because they have such a deep tap root, you do need to remove that tap root or repeatedly cut it back in order to have it spend the energy in that tap root.

Emily

And again, that tap root can go several inches down. So they do make specialized dig deep root weeding tools that are available that you can use to get any weedy plant with a deep tap root, including dandelions with. And these tools are ideal to use when the soil is moist, not hard and dry, and not sopping wet. So some other easy things that you can do to reduce the number of dandelions that you might have in your yard would be to mow your dandelions down before they form those seeds. So when they're still in that yellow bud stage or the yellow bloom stage, you would want to go ahead and mow them down then so that they didn't generate that white poofball with all those seeds. One of the best things you can also do, because dandelions are such opportunists, is to go ahead and make sure that you have a really nice, thick turf grass yard if you really don't want them. And what will happen is that turf grass will fill in in those spots and will start to out-complete your dandelions. Right now in the early springtime is a great time to receive your yard if you didn't do it in the fall already.

Emily

And we did have an episode about yard maintenance that you can go back and check, or you can check the University of Maryland extension's Home and Garden Information Center Turfgrass Web page about turf grass habits and reseeding as well. And if none of has worked and you really can't stand now dandelions. There are several herbicides that are labeled for dandelion use in the landscape, turf grass, and bareground areas. It's best, however, to apply these herbicides in late summer through fall because this is when the dandelions are moving their nutritions from their leaves and their flowers into their root. Again, that deep tap root is what you really would need to get rid of in order to make sure that they don't return next year. We would recommend mowing the area first and removing any flowers so that you can reduce the likelihood of non-target insect contamination. So ideally, you don't want bees coming onto a flower that you just sprayed with anything. So go ahead and mow it down and then spray it with those herbicides And you would want to use a spot spray wand set up for this instead of just a broad spectrum all over your yard.

Emily

You want to go ahead and just target where your weeds are. Hopefully everybody enjoyed learning some fun facts about one of our earliest tops of color in the garden.

Mikaela

My hope is that people look at dandelions a little more philosophically now and start to question what we know, because, of course, some of my earliest memories of gardening were going outside. My mom gave me the dandelion tool, the weeding tool, and I had to remove dandelions from the yard. Things have totally It's changed, of course, since then, but it's really interesting to think about the philosophical approach that we have to weeds. So maybe they aren't so bad anymore, or maybe you're even more convinced now that you need to control them. Either way, it's really interesting.

Rachel

See, my first memory with dandelions was making flower crowns with them.

Mikaela

Well, yes, that too. That's what we used to do in school. But at home, I was the official Dan dandelion weeder. But what I will say about those dandelion tools, I really like them. They're like a long metal pole with a forked end, is it causes minimal disturbance, really. I mean, it is pretty targeted. So If you're going to remove them, that's probably the best way. It disturbs the soil the least.

Rachel

Yes. And they're very, very easy to use.

Mikaela

Right. Apparently, even a child could use it because that's.

Rachel

Yeah, that early child garden labor.

Mikaela

I'm sure my mom will love hearing this. I think she still hates dandelions, I should ask her. Although she's come around to a lot since I've been in this position, it's been really interesting. I think dandelions might be too far. It's too much.

Emily

There's times and places for everything. So maybe you don't mind them in your backyard, but you really don't want them in your front yard because you want that nice clean front yard for your neighbors to appreciate or for the HOA Turfgrass Competition. Or your husband might really want that pristine turf grass up front but not care about them in the back. Or maybe you don't care about them in your turf grass, but you don't want them in your flower beds competing with your tulips and your daffodils or other plants there. Maybe we don't want them in our vegetable garden, but we don't mind them in our turf grass. So there's a time and a place everything, and that includes dandelions. And I think at this point, we're never going to not have them here, and you're always going to see them in public parks and stuff like that.

Mikaela

I mean, they're going to go away. Let's just put it that way. All right. Now switching to plants that aren't dandelions.

: Nature sounds: It’s the Native Plant of the Month with Mikaela: Nature sounds:

Mikaela

As much as I would love to claim dandelions, dandelions as native, and certainly they're very widespread to make people believe they might be, it is not. So I'm going to give us another native plant of the month, ramps, which I say that really aggressively. It's just because I don't know. That's how I look at it when I read it. Ramps are nature's stinkiest gift. Scientific name is Allium trichocum. And so you may have detected that Allium is the term for a lot of things in the onion family. And true to form, this is also in the onion family, it's also called wild leeks. And this is a native wild version of the onion, basically. So this is very different than those weedy spring onions that we have pop up in the yard that are really fine-textured, and they look goofy because you just get patches of them everywhere before your grass starts growing, and you have to go basically cut the onions because it grows faster than the turf grass in the spring. And that's also very common time of year, but ramps are very different. So these are native and grow best in actually the Piedmont and mountain regions.

Mikaela

I have actually never seen them grow natively on the coastal plain. Sorry, Eastern Shore folks. But they like a deep, rich, well-draining soil. So during its brief season, this bulbous root and the leaves are highly sought after for farmers markets and upscale restaurants because it has a very strong garlic-like odor and a sweet, onion-y flavor. So it's got a lot of flavor and stuff packed into it. It's technically classified as a spring ephemeral, so you can really only find them in the spring, and it's a very brief period of time. So you can look for ramps in moist, deciduous forests in Eastern North America, and they grow as far north as Quebec and as far south as South Carolina. So they're pretty widespread. They tolerate up to zone eight, and they go down to zone three. So pretty cold weather plant. And you'll often find this plant commingling with other spring ephemeral, such as bellwort, blood root, ginseng, may apple, drought lilies, and trilliums. So of course, a good way to tell this plant apart from all the others is the strong odor of onion coming from the lance-shaped leaves. So these leaves are a little bit broader and wider than a lot of other commercially-grown onions or leeks, and they don't get very tall.

Mikaela

So the foliage only gets to be about eight inches before dying back in early summer. And they do flower, but I don't see them flowering very often. It's usually at the very, very end of their bloom period or of their growing period. So really, you want to get to ramps before they get to the flowering period because they put more energy into the flower and the seed. And the white clusters of flowers strongly resemble garlic chive flowers, actually. There's just fewer of them. It's not as showy. And they're visited by many beneficial native bees and surffit flies. So the leaves, the maroon stocks, and the white bulbs are all edible but extremely pungent. There are even festivals across the Appalachians celebrating spring ramps. However, a large harvest of these wild plants can be really damaging to their wild populations. And so you need to harvest ethically. You have to be conscious of it. So I actually have a really good story about ramps, and it's why it's my plant of the month, because I got married in West Virginia in April. And it was out in the woods where we were going to get married, and we were driving, and I saw a huge patch of ramps.

Mikaela

And I said, I'm going to harvest some. I know what those are. I'm going to take some home with me. So I harvested a few. I didn't go crazy or anything. And on the way home, the stink was so bad. My brand new husband said, I am pulling over. You need to get these out of the car. Even after I got rid of them in the car, the whole way home, our car smelled like onion and garlic, so strong. So I say, harvest with caution. Make sure you know what you're doing. What I probably should have done was bag them right away. But even through a bag, you can smell these. They are that strong. So don't wild harvest them because then your car is going to stink for the rest of your life, okay?

Emily

I thought you were going to say you put them in your bouquet or something thing. Yes, so did I.

Mikaela

I did not do that, but it was a pretty good story.

Emily

It is a good story. You're not that diehard of a native plant lover that. No.

Mikaela

I wish I had now.

Emily

I didn't even think about that.

Mikaela

That's what I should have done.

Emily

Well, because olives do have a really unique flower when they finally bloom.

Mikaela

Right. I very rarely see the flower. Because they grow in the understory, they don't flower Very often, they mostly propagate vegetatively by the bulbs. But yeah, it's a really interesting plant. And you might even see that if you go to farmers markets, take a look and see if you can find them. It is a very brief harvest period. It's like 2-3 weeks in April, and then that's it. You won't see them for the rest of the year.

Rachel

That's a great native plant.

Mikaela

Yeah, it's a fun one.

: Buzzing noise: It’s the Bug of the Month with Emily: Buzzing Noise:

Emily

Ready for Bug of the Month?

Rachel

Yeah. When would we be ready for the Bug of the Month?

Emily

I know. So this month's Bug of the Month is called the spiny witch hazel goal aphid. And it gets its name because it makes these spiny little goals on witch hazel. So for those of you guys who don't know, a goal is like an abnormal growth. It's just like a plant growth. It's also known as the river birch aphid because it's more noticeable on river birches where it causes a bumpy ridging along the leaves. So its life cycle is really unique in that it goes back and forth between witch hazel and river birches. It takes this aphid two full years to complete its entire life cycle between the two alternative hosts that it does. And it's complicated because, again, it moves between these two different hosts' plans. So overwintering eggs are going to be laid in mid to summer on your witch hazel. They will overwinter, and then the following spring, they will hatch. And this is somewhere around 170 degree days. And the new aphid crawlers will emerge, and they will start feeding on the flower bud. If the plants don't have a flower, they go hungry and they die. They got to time it right with when the buds go out.

Emily

Normally, when you start seeing which hazel bud is when you'd also find these aphyts. When they feed on those The flower bud, the saliva and the chemicals in the saliva induces it to form a spiny goal. So think of this as rather than that flower bud opening up to have a flower, it's going to turn into the tiny spiky little goal, and it looks like the top of a pineapple. It's very jaggedy, lots of little spikes. And what happens is then inside this goal, the second generation of these aphids will develop. So the second generation develops inside of this goal, and they end up being winged aphids. So your first generation on the witch are non-winged. And the second generation is winged and you typically have male and females here. And what will happen is once they emerge out, they will fly and find a river bird. These winged aphids will then give birth to a scale-like generation, so a non-wing generation that settles down and hibernates right underneath in the birch until the following spring. So that's our first year. And then that following spring, the buds will break and the scale-like apes will feed on the leaves and induce the birch to form those goals on their leaves.

Emily

And then this in return will create a generation of winged apids that will go back to the witch hazel. So the winged apids will migrate back to the witch hazel and give birth to a generation of wingless males and females that will then mate and weigh the overwintering eggs to start the whole cycle again. The damage tends to be more noticeable on the river birch because it makes these big, like rippling goal-like patterns along the leaves more than the one in the witch hazel where it's just these tiny little pineapple buds, but you can often times see it in both. The good news is that in both cases, it doesn't need to be controlled. Infestations tend to be very sporadic. You'll have an infestation one year and you won't have them next. So no chemical control is really needed. You could prune out the leaves in the buds if you really find them just coloring and you really want to reduce the likelihood of them happening, but no control is really needed. Instead, just enjoy the the uniqueness of this insect.

Mikaela

I will say that it makes it really annoying to mow around birch trees because it's covered in the honeydew. And so I'll get slapped in the face by a birch branch and be like,.

Rachel

You know, apheed pea.

Emily

Yeah. Well, then that question would be, is it this one or is it a different river birch aphid creating honeydew?

Mikaela

Could be. 

Emily

I don't know. I thought this one was really cool. And the little spiky pineapple goals are so unique and so different looking. Because normally you see the goals and they're big and round. But these ones are these cool spiky ones and just the movement of like, okay, we're going to start here and then we're going to lay eggs, and they're going to have wings, and they're going to move to this one, and then they're going to reproduce, and they're going to lay eggs, and then we're going to move back and forth. It's crazy. It's weird and fascinating.

Mikaela

Right. They are neat. There's so much diversity.

:Music: Get Your Garden Tips of the Month Here with Rachel: Music:

Rachel

Once again, if you haven't done your soil test, it's grow time. And that means before you plant, you need to take a soil test to see how your soil measures up. And if you need to add anything, if you need to amend it in any way, do a soil test first. April is the perfect time. If you've started a bunch of transplants, you might want to start thinking about when you're going to harden them off because they need to be gradually moved outside one week before you're ready to plant them. So if you know that you want to plant, you need to start one week before gradually moving them outside for a couple of hours at a time in a shelter location, and then moving them more to the location that they're going to be. And that gets them acclimated to the temperature outside, and it doesn't put them into shock when they go into the ground. If you love your cold weather crops, like lettuce and spinach and sweet Swiss chard and beets or other favorite salad vegetables, it's time to thin those seed lines to a few inches apart. I know that kills me as much as it kills you to do thinning.

Rachel

But those plants need it in order to be a big, robust loop. So you have to thin them. Before you plant, make sure you check the planting charts for the final spacing between mature plants. And we follow the spacing planting chart to make sure that the plant has adequate airflow between plants so that you're not increasing the chance of disease or insect pressure, or that your fruits are going to have perfect amount of light to grow and thrive. So check those planting charts. And you can go on the University of Maryland Home and Garden Information website for specifics for each plant. Or another great resource is the back of that seed packet. They have your planting chart as well and the spacing for each of the plants as mature or the seeding information on how far apart the seeds need to be placed if there were direct sow seeds. April is a great time to plant seeds of carrots, turnips, parsnips, and deeply worked, well-drained soil. Don't jump the gun and plant your warm season crops outside until the danger of frost is passed. And that means our nighttime temperatures need to be above 45 degrees, because if they're lower than 45 degrees, it can damage the plants in fruiting later.

Rachel

An option for our home gardeners is to lay down black plastic mulch to warm up the soil first. And you can do that on the day that you're going to start hardening your vegetables off. And then that warms up the soil and it creates a nice little warm soil bed. Think of that as an electric blanket for your soil. So end of April beginning of May is when we're going to start planting our warm season crops like tomato, pepper, eggplants, melon. And that's when you also get into that frostate. When is the frostate for your area? You need to do some research and figure that out so that you're not putting your plants out too early. You can also finish planting your fruit trees or small fruit trees. And that goes back to your soil test. You want to make sure that you have the right pH for specialty fruit trees and small fruits, because most of them are pH dependent. In late April and early May, depending on our weather, we will start to see spotter lanternfly eggs starting to hatch. So you can go on the University of Maryland extension Home Garden and Information website and check out the Spotter Lanternfly page to look for what the nims are going to look like so that you can identify them when you need to.

Rachel

When the weather starts to warm up, we're going to see a lot of our critters that have been hibernating throughout the winter, starting to move around, like Eastern box turtles and various species of snakes. They're going to be visiting your yard. So don't bother them. Leave them alone. They don't want to mess with you just as much as you don't want to mess with them. Oh, my favorite thing, spring bulbs have finally emerged. We saw daffodils starting to peak through in mid-March, and by now, the spent flowers are just gone, and you're going to have green leaves hanging out. Don't cut the leaves. Don't raid them. Don't bundle them up. You want to let those leaves stay leaves for 6-8 weeks after the flower has bloomed. This gives the bulb the energy to grow flowers next year. So mark it on your calendar that, Hey, the bulbs were blooming March 17th. And then you know six weeks from then or eight weeks from then, you can cut the leaves. But you need to let them have the energy to grow flowers next year. That's the end of my garden tips.

Mikaela

There's always so much to do in April.

Rachel

I know. There's not enough time.

Emily

Yeah. I feel like it's one of those months, though, where you're excited to garden, though, because it's just getting nice. Things are coming up. You have all this hope. You're not sweating yet. It's a good sweat when you're outside. It's not like I'm just sweating because it's hot. It's like I'm sweating because I'm working hard.

Rachel

You don't have lean pressure. You don't have mosquitoes getting at you when you're outside planting.

Emily

I mean, we'll still have mosquitoes.

Mikaela

I saw mosquitoes the other day, even though it's- No way.

Rachel

I'm really excited for this year. I'm I'm going to build a raised bed. I'm going to plant some more flowers.

Mikaela

Rachel's got garden hope and dreams.

Rachel

I'm excited. All kinds of fun stuff happens in the garden in April. And how could you not be excited and full of hope for the growing season.

:Up Beat Music:

Rachel

Well, that's all we have for this episode, listener. We hope you enjoy it, and we'll tune in next month for more gardening tips. If you have any garden-related questions, please email us at umegardenpodcast@gmail.com, or look us up on Facebook at Garden Thyme Podcast. 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/hgic. Thanks for listening and have fun getting down and dirty in your garden.

Everyone

Goodbye.

Mikaela 

The Garden Thyme Podcast is a monthly podcast brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Mikaela Boley, Principal agent associate for Talbot County. Rachel Rhodes, senior agent associate for Queen Anne County, and Emily Zobel, senior agent associate for Dorchester County.

 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.

: Upbeat Music: