607 July - Climate Resilient Gardens

Hey Listener, 

In this month's episode, we’re talking about how to make our gardens and landscapes more resilient to climate change. 

We also have our : 

• Native Plant of the Month: Black Elderberry 
• Bug of the Month: Squash Bees
•  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

• 26:50 Garden Tips of the Month
• 33:20 Native Plant of the Month
• 38:50 Bug of the Month

Transcript

Garden Thyme Podcast Transcript
  S6:E07 Climate Resilient Gardens

July 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.

 Rachel

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 Rachael.

Mikaela

I'm Mikaela.

Emily

And I'm Emily.

Rachel

In this month's episode, we're talking about climate resilient gardens and landscapes.

Mikaela

And you You know what? This is a tough topic to talk about because it's very broad scale. And I think maybe one of the first things we want to clear up is we are not climatologists. Our background isn't necessarily in climate change and related to that. But what we're looking at is what can we do in response to some of the impacts from climate change and what we're seeing, at least here in Maryland. And you know what? It's not just any one part of the US anymore, right? I think about back to the spring when Western Maryland received just a complete inundation of flooding and rainfall way above historical averages. And yet the remainder of Maryland was still under a drought advisory. So it feels very contradictory, but I think that's the pattern we're going to see or continue to see is that we have some of these extreme extremes. So it can be both things at once, which is really confusing.

Emily

Yeah. I think we've also seen a lot of variability just year to year. So last year in 2024, we had such a wet spring compared to this year, we've had such a dry spring. And I'm sure if you map things, a lot of people will say, well, it varies every single year and stuff. But how do we adopt our garden? So no matter whether or not we have a wet spring or a dry spring, we're still able to garden and still have luscious gardens. And that's the main focus on what we're going to talk about today, which is how do you make your garden more resistant to these flexible changes that we're potentially going to be seeing more of in the future?

Rachel

I think one of the key things that we as gardeners can do is take a look at the USDA Hardiness Zone Map that changed in 2023, and more than 50% of the US changed a half of zone warmer than the previous map. So taking a look at that map and saying, Hey, what zone do I fall into now? Has it changed? And then we can adapt some of the plants that we put in our gardens and move things around a little bit and see how changing the plants that we have can be a little bit more resilient.

Mikaela

And I think it's important to note that, yes, the map did get updated. So people might think, Oh, well, there's bound to be changes since the last update. But these maps are updated given averages taken over many, many years. And so it's a cumulative average. And that's a pretty dramatic shift to see that more than 50 % of the US has changed for the warmer. Now, there's very rare instances where it actually the plant hardiness zones got cooler. But again, that's pretty rare.

Rachel

Yeah. And I think that it really just hones in on, hey, We're having these swings in our temperature. We really need to change some of the practices that we're doing in our gardens. And in Maryland, we can already see these swings happening where we have higher than average temperatures. And like Emily said, we've seen these fluctuations for several years, and it's an intense changes in our spring to summer transition that we all recognize that these transitions are happening in more of an intense manner than the quiet spring that slowly transitions into a warm summer. It's one day it's 65, and the next day it's 87. With that, higher than average temperatures, our plants aren't able to adapt as easily as as they could before.

Mikaela

So again, I think some of these changes we'll see based on your location, obviously, out here on the coastal plain or in the coastal counties, sea level rise and saltwater intrusion is more of a pressing concern, especially for these coastal communities. But even out West, we saw a lot of that flooding that occurred back this spring. I know Ellcat City got hit by several, like hundred or thousand-year storms back in 2018 and 2019, I think. So it affects all different parts of the state differently.

Rachel

So as we are seeing these fluctuations in temperature, we're also seeing the fluctuation in rainfall with more dramatic and intense events. But we are seeing that all over parts of Maryland, even though we're having very intense storms, there are also drought instances happening as well. And according to the US Drought Monitor, as of June fifth of 2025, parts of Maryland are still under an abnormally dry drought situation. So we had a lot of rain in 2024, but then, remember, we had a severe drought from July into August, September, November, and we entered into 2025 into a drought. I think we were almost 10 inches below in our groundwater levels. So we have these major rainfall events happening, but we are still consistently in a drought.

Mikaela

And I think it's important to note that January and February tend to be one of our wetter months in Maryland, and we were about half of our average. So not only coming into 2025, but then being less than an average than our typical rainfall. So we had a lot of ground to make up in April and May.

Emily

Yeah. So what does all this mean for our home landscape? Each one of these potential changes in our climate could have different effects in our home garden.

Mikaela

And it even impacts some of the knowledge or traditions that we pass on for future growers, because I know growing up, we were always following the plant after Mother's Day as like, that's a safe, frost-free date. Well, now it's probably more like mid-April. So planting after Easter might be okay now. So it really does affect your seasonal growing and that longer growing season. So your first frost might not come now until the end of October, depending on where you are.

Rachel

Yeah, I think that's really important to mention, especially because Maryland is so diverse in our landscapes, and the Mid-Atlantic is so diverse in general topography as well, that our frost dates have changed, and taking a look at those and saying, Okay, I know that my frost free date used to be Mother's Day, but let's plug in our zip code into the National Gardening Association tool for frost-free dates and see if it's changed at all and how we can adapt even our vegetable gardening practices, because that's when the Mother's Day thing comes into play, like it's safe to plant your tomatoes after Mother's Day. It might be after Easter, like you said. And then that even backs up even further to say, Okay, can I start my cold season crops sooner in the year? And if I have to do that, when do I need to start planning for that? Am I making my gardening calendar now in November or December to get ready for my cold season crops? And we, as gardeners, can take advantage of that, right? Because then we might have a longer growing season for our cold weather crops or a longer growing season for our warm season crops.

Mikaela

Does that mean then with this extended growing season that we might see more generations of pest species for these different crops?

Emily

Yeah. And in a lot of cases, not all of them, but a lot of our common pest insects that you would have. So things like aphids and the thrips and the scales that have multiple generations already, Essentially, you could have them emerging earlier into the season, as well as something that maybe only had two generations before may end up having three generations, or instead of three, it might have four generations. So you can end up having more generations of an insect pest, meaning that you have to control it more often. You might see a heavier buildup later in the year because you're getting more generations of it. But the natural enemies that would feed on them, you may also get more generations, but it tends to take them longer to emerge and longer to catch up. So any insect that does the complete metamorphosis, they're generally going to take more time to get through that life cycle than something like an aphe that just goes from a nymph to an adult. So we the potential to have a lot more pest generations, but not necessarily get a continued generation out of our natural enemies. So I think one other thing to be mindful of with this is that with an extended heat is that your plants will likely lose moisture a lot faster, especially in the heat of the day.

Emily

So it's really important to make sure that we are giving them the right amount of water and doing some good watering practices, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But just making sure that those plants have adequate water, especially to get them through the heat of the day. And your vegetable garden, if your tomato plants are a little wilty in the heat of the day, maybe you wait until four or five and go out and water them and they'll bounce back. But when it comes to our perennial plants, so distinctly things like trees and shrubs, whenever you're getting them established, you really need to make sure that they got plenty of water during those summer months. And we would generally say water for a longer period of time, less often, so that they get that really good root system. And when it comes to trees, you almost the same way that we mulch making that donut, you want to water making that donut as well. So you don't want to water only around the base because their root system spreads out as much as their canopy does. So I would almost say, look where that canopy is and put your soaker hose there or a few inches in from there or spoil it around the tree just to make sure that you get a good soaker.

Mikaela

What I like to say is that if you're using a sprinkler or irrigation system, putting out that clear container or a cat food can, I think we've decided before, is a good measure because that's about an inch tall. And then water with your system for 20 or 30 minutes and get an idea of how much water that actually delivers. Because most plants need between inch and two inches of rain or water in this circumstance per week. And that may need to be increased a little bit in periods of drought, but you should also account with natural rainfall as well. So when you're doing your calculations, maybe don't water the week's where we get four or five inches of rain. It probably doesn't need it.

Emily

If your ground's soggy, you probably don't need to add more water.

Mikaela

Oh, yeah. And when I talk to groups about watering, and I get a of questions about how do I know if it's been watered adequately or not? And there's a couple of ways you can do it. You can actually get a soil moisture probe. They sell them, and they have varying lengths so you can see how far into the soil that moisture is getting. Or you can do it the old fashioned way, which you're using your finger or you dig a hole and see if the soil is moist enough, however far deep you need to go. Usually I use the older method, but you can also just Just take cues from your plant. If they're wilted just a little, it's probably okay. If we've had a recent rainfall. If it's wilting a lot, it might be time to give it a good soaking. Because plants that develop roots that are very close to the surface after repeated waterings and stuff, they will wilt faster. So even wilting sometimes isn't a super reliable method. They can wilt just a little bit. They can handle a little bit of stress. In fact, back in college, we did in one of our labs, we grew salentro, and we did a control of watering it super regularly.

Mikaela

And then we had the experimental group where we would wait for it to actually wilt and start to get stressed out, and then we would water it. That salontro tasted better because the concentrate of those oils were more pronounced in the stressed out Ceylontro. So sometimes Sometimes that's beneficial to have stress. So another strategy homeowners and landscape managers can use is choosing plants that have heat and drought tolerance, especially when you go to look at varieties. Often, varieties are touted as being tolerant to these kinds of conditions, if they are more so than the straight species. So you want to opt for plants that can withstand those longer periods of being dried out and handling heat stress. And one tool is the US Forest Service tree atlas, although that more has to do with native growing range and how that's going to shift under current carbon emissions. So basically climate change. So that doesn't necessarily tell you whether those plants are more able to withstand drought and heat. But, of course, you guys know I can't let an episode slide without mentioning warm season native grasses, which are excellent at performing this job. So there's a lot of examples of native grasses.

Mikaela

 So blue stems, big blue stem, little blue stem, switchgrasses in particular, because they're very adaptable to both wet and dry situations. So in the event that we have periodic rain inundation, They won't die out. Broom sedges, purple love grass is a great one, prairie drop seeds. So we have a lot of these warm season native grasses. And I emphasize that because we do have lots of native grasses that are cool season, but they won't be as adaptable as these. And there's quite a few native perennials that can also handle varying environmental conditions from wet to dry. Of course, my native plant of the month will be one of these, but that's just a little teaser. So what I say is that warm season native grass is very underutilized in the landscape, both for appearance but also for function, especially in these spaces that historically are tough to plant in or provide tough environments like an island in a parking lot. They're really good at handling the drought and heat that inevitably come with being surrounded by blacktop and cement.

Rachel

So Mikaela, you did a great job of explaining different native warm season grasses that really tolerant to the swings in heat and drought conditions. And I'm not sure if we're there yet with our vegetable plants. And there's a lot of historic growth, especially on the Eastern shore of plants that people love to plant that aren't doing well because of the swings in our temperature and our drought conditions. I feel like as As a horticulture educator, I'm seeing more incidents of beans that are dropping their blossoms because of our hot temperatures at night or tomatoes with issues because of the infrequent watering. We're getting a lot of cat facing or a lot of blossom and drop because we're getting a lot of inconsistent watering. And I think that's a cultural change to be Okay, I understand that you love to plant lima beans, but we might not be in the zone for getting good lima bean production because of how hot our night temperatures are.

Emily

There's definitely been people struggling with crops to produce things, particularly once you get into that heat in August and July with things like fruit drop and flower drop and stuff like that. And I think the recommendations we would have would be to start looking for some of those more heat-tolerant vegetables. Our Home and Garden Information Center blog, the Maryland Gross blog, did a really great article on this back in 2022 that talks about some ones to think about that you can do. There's definitely, you can find things like heat-tolerant lettuce or heat-tolerant broccoli. Obviously, you can't grow those in full summer sun still, but there are ones that will bolt a little less likely than some of the more traditional varieties people may have grown. And then doing things like sweet potato, which really likes the heat, or okra. So maybe looking for some of those more Southern varieties of these same vegetables to swap out in your garden. It could be one to do. So if you really want some of those leafy greens, but you can't get lettuce to grow because it starts bolting or gets that bitter taste in your garden, consider doing some of the other things like Callaloo or Malibar spinach or Asian mustard is another one that can tolerate some warmer weather.

Emily

You could look for some of these other leafy greens to help fill space in your garden and help you get some nutrition and try something new and interesting that's a little bit more tolerant to the heat.

Mikaela

It's a great blog article, of course, written by John Tronfeld, so no surprise there. But a lot of his references also include trials with heat-tolerant tomatoes or other heat-tolerant vegetable varieties. So he's well-rounded.

Emily

Yeah. I know Dr. Emily Everts from University of Delaware yearly does heat stress trials with a lot of brassicas and leafy greens. And I think she actually does lime beans as well because Delaware has a lot more lime beans growers than Maryland does. So she's another great resource to check on stuff. Now, a lot of the stuff she does is from our commercial growers. But again, if you can always check and see if you can find those varieties in your local garden shops or online as well.

Mikaela

So we know this topic has been heavy, and it's been a little bit more on the serious side, but we do like to wrap up the topic talking about what homeowners can do to create more resilient landscapes or what solutions there are for homeowners.

Emily

Pretty much everything on this list of things to do or things that we talk about a lot on this podcast already, and hopefully they're things that our listeners are familiar with and are already considering or already doing in their landscapes. But one of the first things you can do to help make your landscape more adaptable to climate change would be to plant a diverse landscape. So this includes a variety of natives and non-natives, both including trees, shrubs, perennials, and grasses. The more you landscape with plant diversity, the more resilient they are going to be to invasive plants and disease pressure in a changing climate. These plants provide an array of ecosystem services, including food and habitat for wildlife, stormwater absorption, and drought resistance in the landscape. And by diversifying and just having more options in your landscape, if something was unable to adapt that year or combat, then chances are you may not notice it as dramatically if you have more there. I may not notice one slightly not thriving bush in my landscape if I have lots of other beautiful things in my landscape. The other thing is by doing, particularly a layered landscape, so by having trees with bushes or shrubs and then having ground covers, is that works really well to help hold moisture in the same way that we recommend using a mulch, it does the exact same process here.

Emily

By having those multiple layers of different plants, you allow for that water absorption and the layering effect to happen.

Mikaela

They call that green mulch. It also creates soft landings, which I know entomologists talk a lot about, but essentially it's a better environment for insect health.

Emily

Well, it also does a soft landing for rainwater So if you ever notice that when rainwater hits a bare ground area, rainwater itself can cause compaction in your soil. So by having something for that rainwater to hit first before your soil, it improves your soil health. So having turf grass instead of bare ground is beneficial, but then having plants above it that that rainwater can hit first and then slowly trickle down, take some of the energy or some of the momentum, I should say, out of the rainwater so that when it finally makes its way to the soil, it's not compacting as much and it's slowed down and can get absorbed a little bit more. Which leads me to our other one, which is increase your soil health. So keeping those bare spots covered to the best of your ability and doing things like putting in more organic matter into your soil, getting that soil test so that you know what you need and not over fertilizing. Just improving your soil health. Not only is it a carbon sink, having healthy soil will help increase the health of your plants all around to make them more healthy so that they can better adapt to our changing climates as needed.

Emily

So do your best to increase your soil health. Get that soil test, incorporate compost or fertilizer as needed.

Rachel

So along with planting a diverse landscape, we also need to think about reducing our garden water consumption. And there are a number of ways that we can actually do this. And this is a particularly important when we have increased heatwaves or droughts. And they can include, like Emily and Mikaela mentioned, appropriate mulching and soft landings. We can also install rain gardens and plant those with plants that can handle these swings in heat, wave, and drought, or we could use rain barrels. And that way we can use and store water so that we can use it during times of drought, or just adjusting our watering schedule or using drip irrigation. And by adjusting our watering schedule, we're not watering in the heat of the day when there's a chance of a higher evaporation or using that flexible tubing to divert our downspouts and water away from our home's foundation so that it can be absorbed by our lawn or by a rain garden. These practices help plants retain moisture and reduce evaporation. And we talked about how to mulch appropriately. So making sure that you have that two-inch mulch layer and making sure that you have a donut around your trees and your shrubs so that's not up against your bulk mulch.

Rachel

But actually helps retain moisture for your plants to use during times of drought.

Mikaela

All right. So, shocker here, using native plants that are well adapted to the growing conditions present. Although we encourage you to try and use species that have a distribution range that include areas south of your location, just because if we use the projections of climate change and what pressures that puts on our plant, how are zones, it's going to be making us a little bit warmer. So you don't want to choose a plant, particularly a tree or shrub, where we're already sitting on the Southernly edge of its growing range, because chances are we're going to be out of that range in several years. If not more. And the other thing that I love to encourage people to do is plant more trees. And I know that sounds super basic, but trees are excellent at carbon sequestration, and they're also Also excellent at improving air quality. Of course, they provide us with oxygen. They absorb a ton of moisture in the soil, and they can greatly reduce the heat island effects in urban environments. And a prime example of that is if you're coming into a parking lot, do you choose to park in the shade under the tree, or do you park out in the open?

Mikaela

So trees can also help with natural air conditioning, particularly if you're using things like deciduous trees on the South western part of your house, something that's going to provide shade in the hottest part of the day in the summer. But then in the winter, when it loses its leaves, it can passively allow light from the sun and more heat into the home. Another good useful trick is to use evergreen as a windbreak or barrier on the northeastern side of your property. That helps heat the home as well in a weird way because it serves as a really nice windbreak and protects the house a little bit All right, so we're in the heat of the summer.

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

Rachel

But with that comes a lot of insect activity. Right now, if you have evergreen, you're going to want to go look for bag worm caterpillars. They're really, really active. And you'll want to look for little bags crawling around an evergreen tree or shrub. And with that, you're going to need to spray infested trees with a microbial insecticide. That's BT. By mid-July. After you get to mid-July, the BT is not going to be effective. Mature bag worms are not controlled with BT, so they are best collected by hand and destroyed or sprayed with an insecticide containing spinosus. We're caring for our lawns in hot, dry summer, so you want to maintain your lawn mower. Make sure your blades are sharp so that you're not harming your blades of grass. Proper lawn mowing is critical to help your grass survive the summer. So mow them high and let them lie, should be your mowing strategy. Cut your cool-seasoned turf grass, fescus and bluegrass to a height of three 4 inches and leave the clippings on the lawn because they will naturally decompose. Now, when we get to certain temperatures in the summer, our cool season grasses go into a natural dormancy.

Rachel

So you're not going to mow when your grasses grow dormant. If you have Bermuda grass or Zoiza grass, it's the time to fertilize them. Summer applications of fertilizer should not be applied to cool-season grasses, though. And when fertilizing, you want to follow your local laws on fertilizer amounts. So in Maryland, we have very specific laws on how you can apply fertilizer. And you're going to follow those. If you have planted chrysanthums or asters last fall because they were so pretty, now it is the time to cut them back about halfway. And you're going to want to do this by mid-July. And this encourages fall blooming, but it also keeps them nice and short so they don't flop over by the time fall comes. You want to patrol your yard for mosquito breeding sites? At least twice a week, you're going to check and remove water that may be standing in trash cans or recycling cans, flour pots, our children's toys or pet toys, waiting pools, tires, tarps, etc. Just do a little scaven your hunt around your yard. If you have a vegetable garden, this is going to sound horrible, but now is the time that you need to start planning for the fall.

Rachel

So you want to sow your seeds of broccoli, kale, beets, turnup, even cauliflower, in flats or containers by the third to fourth week in July. You can do a late crop of squash or beans or even cucumber if you direct sow them in your garden in July. But you want to do that probably the first or second week of July. Don't wait to the end. Now is the time to harvest your onions when the tops die back and let them dry in the garden after digging them up or tie the stems together and hang them in your garage or attic, anywhere with good air circulation. Store them in a cool, dry place. Also need to dig up your garlic when the tops turn yellow and die back. You're going to follow the same procedure as your onions, you're going to let them dry in the sun and then store them in an airy place before braiding them. And for garlic, especially, you can store them in a mesh bag. You don't want them in a container that doesn't have airflow. Cut back your herbs. You can dry your herbs right now, too. That's a really, really easy thing to do.

Rachel

Just cut them back and then hang them in a brown paper bag that has some holes punched in in a nice, cool, dry place. And then you'll have dried herbs for the winter to use. Continue to scout your plants for disease and bugs. Like I said, July is the time when bugs really start to show up in our garden, and this is when we can practice IPM. So get your black lights ready because now we need to go on a scavenger hunt to look for tomato hornworms because they're going to be out and about. And if you use a black light on them at night, they glow like a Christmas tree. It's really, really cool and a fun activity. Squat squash vine bore larvae are feeding on the inside of your squash and pumpkin stems. If the leaves are wilting or you see holes in the lower stems with some sawdust frass or droppings around the holes, slip the stem above the hole with a razor blade and remove the larvae. You can then mound the soil around the injured stem and try to get some more harvest out of your squash. If it's too wilted, if you have multiple areas of squash fine bore holes on that squash, rip it out, put it in a black trash bag, and let it bake in the sun.

Rachel

Because if you just throw that wilted plant into your compost bin, those larvae are going to continue to eat, and then you're going to have another generation of squash fine bore. And we don't want those. We don't like them. Squash bugs are out and about as well. So check your stems of your plants for those pretty copper little eggs. They are pretty easy to remove or smush. You can take a roll of duct tape and wrap it around your hand so the sticky side is out and press it on the stem where you see the eggs and they come off really easily. But now is when you're going to see them. So if you remove the eggs, you're going to get a lower quantity of squash bugs, but you're never going to get rid of them. So that's all the tips I have for this month, listen. It is.

Emily

It's getting hot out and it stinks to be out there. So you got to get up early and do this all first thing. Make sure you drink plenty of water when you're doing all these chores, everyone. Mikaela, I'm excited for our native plant of the month. This is a pretty cool one.

:Bird songs: It’s the Native Plant of the Month with Mikaela: Bird songs:

Mikaela

My plant of the month is black elderberry, which is Sambucus canadencis. There's actually another species, Sambucus nigra, but this is the one that we see most commonly, at least in Maryland. So the reason this is my pick for the month is because this is a type of plant that is very resilient and very adaptable. So it'll handle what a lot of people will throw at it. And so it seems really appropriate to talk about because we just talked about landscapes that are maybe a little bit more adaptable. So this has a large suckering habit. So that means you have the main stem that might be a cluster of branches, but then you have roots that will come up a little bit further out. And so what I would say is plant this cautiously or be conscious of this where you put it because you will see that suckering habit. So this is a plant that gets pretty large. This is a larger shrub, maybe 10 to 12 feet tall and equally as wide. So it's a pretty good privacy screen planting, both both for its size and for the fact that it suckers. So it is a little bit more dense in canopy.

Mikaela

This is something that blooms in late May, early June, depending on where you are. And it's got these clusters of white flowers, and it's very similar to plants in the carrot family. And in fact, a lot of mistaken identity plants include elderberry, and confusing that with things like poison hemlock and queen Anne's lace. It looks very similar. But a really good way to tell them apart is this is an actual woody shrub, and those other things I just mentioned, those are herbaceous perennials, so they will not have wood tissue the way that this does. So fun fact about the flowers, because we love fun facts, is that they're used to make the liqueur Saint Germain, as well as many other delicious non-alcoholic tonics and syrups. In fact, elderflower syrup is one of my favorite things to put in a mocktail or I mix it with seltzer water. It is delicious. And again, it's got this suckering behavior, which is pretty characteristic of shrubs that occur in wet soils, which is ultimately its favorite place to grow. And where I see it grow in its natural habitat the most is in wetter areas, and it's got very fast growth.

Mikaela

So the good news is, again, if you're using this as a privacy screen, it grows pretty quickly. It grows up very fast. It does have somewhat weak branches, which isn't a huge issue unless it's in a spot that sees a lot of wind or maybe a lot of snowfall where it's actually breaking the branches. And honestly, they can be pruned or cut back for a little bit more bushy canopy anyways. So you can do this in winter. In fact, I have an elderberry I started from a cutting. It had a weird shape. It was almost like a tree. It had one singular big branch, and I cut it back about two thirds, and it has really shrubbed out. It also has opposite compound leaves. That's another good identification characteristic, especially if you're telling it apart from things like Queen Anne's Lace and Poison Hemlock. But I haven't even gotten to the true gift of this plant, which are the berries. So it produces, after these wonderful flowers, it has these dark purple berries that are edible for both humans and other wildlife, but they do go very quickly. It supports over 48 species of sawn birds, so you have to fight pretty quickly to those berries.

Mikaela

And they are chalk-full of antioxidants and are considered a superfood for immunity support, which isn't surprising most people because when you go to a more holistic cold care or something, you're finding elderberry syrups instead of some of the other cough medicines. So make sure you get a positive ID on plants before consuming any wild fruits. And as always, do not harvest from public or roadside spaces. These are unmaintained spaces. You don't know how they're treated. Your best bet is to grow this plant at home, which is what I would encourage you to do anyways. So while we have lots of varieties and cultivars available for the home landscape, so they might be a little bit smaller. I know there's a variety that has a darker purple leaf instead of the regular just plain green, but it's a beautiful shrub. It grows wild throughout Maryland's ecoregions in both the mountain, Piedmont, and coastal Plain, and it can tolerate a variety of growing conditions, which makes it adaptable. So full sun to full shade, though you may have fewer flowers in full shade. It handles wet to dry soil and all soil types from clay to sand to organic matter.

Mikaela

However, it definitely prefers a moist meadow or woodland area and freshwater embankments. I don't believe it has much Brackish water tolerance. But other than that, very resilient.

Emily

I have to say the blooms are really pretty. I like the little clusters.

Mikaela

And those flowers are big, by the way. They're not as small as Queen Anne's lace because that's what they look like, but they are quite substantial, 8 inches across, at least.

: Buzzing noise: What’s That buzzing? It’s the Bugs of the Month with Emily: Buzzing Noise:

Emily

So this This month's Bug of the Month is squash bees. These are definitely my favorite bees. They are native bees because squash plants are native to the Americas, so North, South, and Central America is where squash plants or cucurbits are native to. Squash bees are found throughout most of the United States and Mexico, and they are important pollinators in the plant group cucurbit, which would include things like summer squash, winter squash, zucchinis, pumpkin. So pretty much anything in the gorgs. The one exception would be things like cucumber. Most of our commercial cucumber don't actually require pollination, or they get pollinated by smaller bees than squash bees. They're oftentimes confused with a honey bee, which they resemble in size and coloration. In comparison, squash bees are a little bit bulkier and they have long antennas and rounder faces. I think they tend to be a little bit bolder looking in that their abdomen has very bold, black, and yellow stripes, more so than a honey bee because they're not quite as fuzzy on their abdomen. So interesting fact is that the female squash bees tend to have very fuzzy hind legs, which they use to collect pollen with for their babies or their larvae, versus a honey bee is going to have a pollen basket, which is like a little pouch that she...

Emily

After she visits flowers, she'll scrape all the pollen off and put it in this one spot on her. Versus a squash bee is like, well, let it be all over me. It's fine. I'll just get it all back to my nest and then I'll clean it off of Male squash bees have a yellow spot on their face, but the female squash bees also have completely dark faces. So squash bees start visiting flowers starting at sunrise before the other bees are out and are active. So they, again, are our main pollinators of things like summer squash, winter squash, zucchiny, pumpkin, and so forth. And while things like honey bees and bumblebees may also pollinate these plants, oftentimes people have found that squash bees, because they get up earlier and are active earlier, have already pollinated a lot of these plants before the honey bees and bumblebees even start visiting them. So it's hard to separate out them because the squash bees are early birds. The early bird gets the worm, the early squash bee gets all the pollen and the nectar.

Mikaela

I love that. That should be the new saying.

Emily

It should be. It's the new saying.

Mikaela

I'm just looking it up just for the sake of reading more. And I didn't realize that they also, these bees, will nectar on non-cucurbit flowers, including piccara weed, which was my plant of the month last month, Monarda, and then some morning glories as well. So that's crazy.

Emily

Yeah. A lot of the specialization when it comes to bees is the pollen for their young, more so than the nectar. So the adults, because pollen is the protein source that most of them feed their babies or their larvae, versus the adults tend to feed on the nectar. Now, they'll mix the nectar in with the pollen to make what we call pollen patty for their young because you can't just give them dry anything. It needs to be a patty. But for the most part, the nectar is the sugar carbohydrates that they use to fuel themselves with a little bit of pollen. But most of the time when you see bees gathering pollen, it's for their young. And that's the specialization level more so than the adult. So in this case, yeah, I heard pickleweed, but I didn't know about morning glories, so that's cool. So speaking of squash bee, young, squash bees are solitary. Even though they sleep in flowers together, they are technically solitary. They don't have a caste system or a queen, so there's no colony to guard. They don't produce honey or anything like that. And they are a type of ground nesting bee, meaning that the female bee will dig her own nest in the soil, particularly sandy, dry-ish soil, and then she will collect pollen and nectar, and then she will lay her egg on top of that, and then she will seal that nest up, and then she will either make another cavity in that nest, like different chambers off of that nest, or she'll go dig a whole brand new nest for it.

Emily

So these are an example of, I know we talked about not leaving bare soil earlier, but this is an example of, especially if you have grand nesting bees in a place, you may want to leave some bare soil in some places. So the adults tend to be active late May, early June here through August. But if you leave your squash plants going and they're continuing to bloom, you'll keep getting these guys. They'll die out with first frost, if not. Squash bees exclusively gather pollen from the genus cucurbit. The flowers open near dawn and the squash bees begin foraging around the same time. They continue to visit flowers until the flowers themselves wilt or close up, which is typically around midday, so during the heat of the day. It takes about 6 to 10 visits to fully pollinate the flower. These bees are actually pretty effective compared to some other ones. They can typically pollinate a plant before other bees get out and emerge throughout the day. Although honey bees and bumble bees can be effective pollinators for squash, it tends to be superficial because the squash bees have gotten up early and they've already done the job.

Emily

By the time the honey bees and the bumble bees show up, squash bees already gotten it done. By some estimate, squash bees alone may pollinate around two-thirds of our commercially-grown squash and squash gourd plants in the United States. They are also regular visitors to our vegetable garden. To conserve squash bees in our garden, please be cautious of using any and all pesticides, especially when handling squash plant pests such as cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and those dreaded squash fine boors. If you are going to use any control for any of these pests, particularly around the insecticides or maybe a fungicide to treat something like downy mildew or something, the best thing that you can do is remove the flowers so that the bees aren't around the plant. Please note that if you are using a chemical that is systemic, and you should check the label to see if it says that. But if it's systemic, that means that the plant could potentially incorporate that chemical into nectar or pollen. You definitely want to probably remove the blossoms for a day or two after you've applied it. But again, read the label. Some of the chemicals that are used to treat things like cucumber beetles, squash vine bor, and squash bugs.

Emily

If they are toxic to bees, on the label, there's going to say something that says toxic to bees, and it's going to tell you avoid poisoning these bees or other bees inadvertently. That is my Bug of the Month. It's one of my favorites because they're just so cute. They're super important because a lot of, if not most of our cucurbit, they have different male versus female flowers. So this is one of those groups that I think, with the exception of cucumber, where a lot of them have become parthenocarpic, where they can self-pollinate or self-fertilize. Most of these require a pollinator to take from a male to a female flower.

Mikaela

So pollinate, yeah. Squash in particular, they'll have the male flowers that come out first, and then the female flowers will follow. But that pollen has to transfer between those two flowers.

Emily

I never would have thought of telling people to plant squash to help pollinators, but plant squash to help pollinators, guys, here's a group of pollinators that literally need it.

: Music: 

Mikaela

Well, that's all we have for this episode, listener. We hope you enjoyed it, and we'll tune in next month for more gardening tips. If you have any garden-related questions, please email us at umegardenpodcast@gmail. Com, or look us up on Facebook at Garden Time 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.

Rachel 

 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. 

: Music: