From the cutting edge studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA, it is time for another beautiful bouquet episode of chemical free horticultural hijinks, You Bet Your Garden.

We who toil in the soil do not live by tomatoes alone.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

And on today's show, we'll reveal the most fabulous flowers for cutting and bringing indoors.

Otherwise, it's a fabulous phone call show, cats and kittens.

That's right.

Potential guests are busy sowing sunflowers.

So we will take that heapin' helping of your telecommunicated questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and decidedly diversive deconstructions.

So keep your eyes and/or ears right here, true believers, because it's all coming up faster than you have the best looking vase on the block.

Right after this.

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- 888 492 9444, Pat, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thanks, Mike.

- Well, thank you, Pat.

How you doing?

- I'm good.

How are you?

I'm just ducky!

Thanks for asking.

Ducky is actually outperforming me in the Q ratings for this show, so I'm not sure where to go with that.

And where is Pat doing well?

- We are located right next to Sorrenti's Vineyard in Saylorsburg.

They're our neighbor.

- PA. Pennsylvania.

- Pennsylvania, yes.

- OK, all right, what can we do, what can we do for Pat in PA?

- OK, Mike, just a two part question.

Last summer was the most invasive bunch of lanternflies and they gave me a lot of anxiety and I wanted to ask, do they come here because of the area?

There's ponds down the road.

Are they attracted to certain trees?

- Well, let me stop you right there, because I know what's going on, as opposed to most of the phone calls that come in to this show.

Are you a part of the vineyard or are you adjacent to it?

- No, we're about 300 yards away.

- Yeah, not far enough One of the things we have learned about these creatures, that are still confined to a relatively small area in Pennsylvania, Virginia and a few other places, is that their primary host plant is the, quote, Tree of Heaven, ailanthus, which is a weed tree.

But more and more, as I talk to people who are losing real plants, so to speak, grapevines are number two.

Now, what did they do to you?

- The year before last, summer, we had, like, two.

And so this past summer, 2020, they just were very pervasive.

I mean, I don't think they bother anybody.

It's just that they hang all over our pampas grass.

They just hang on everything.

And I'm constantly swatting.

But I don't know, like, what to use to get rid of them.

They say they have these bags, like beetle bags, you can put out.

Short of putting a screen netting across my whole deck.... - So they come up on your deck is the problem.

- Oh, yeah, they hang around the eaves, the fascia of the house, they hang on my ferns.

- This is unusual.

Most of the time, lanternflies are attracted to large woody plants.

I mean, they will cross over from ailanthus to hang out on maple trees and things like that.

And again, grapevines, once they're established, are extraordinarily woody.

I've not heard of them hanging out in non-plant places or in things like grasses, but I think this should be easy.

We'll start with water, which is the best pesticide.

I would be ready to hit the adults with pressurized streams of water, whether that's from a hand-held canister, if they're in an out of the way place, or your own water supply with a nozzle that's adaptable, set to laser, you know, and just knock them down.

Believe it or not, that gets rid of most of them.

And if they become pervasive, what I would recommend in the summertime would be a light horticultural oil that's sourced from vegetable oils as opposed to dormant oil, which is used in the winter.

But I think if you just sprayed the suckers off, number one, you would reduce their numbers dramatically, and number two, you would get intense emotional satisfaction.

- OK, thank you so much - And good luck to you.

Frank, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hi, Mike, it's a pleasure to speak with you.

- It's a pleasure to speak with you, Frank.

How you doing?

- I'm OK.

I'm calling from Whitehall, Pennsylvania, but the garden's actually going to be in Nicholsville, New York.

- All right.

What can we do for you, man?

- My son in law is going to build a raised garden bed, and I was wondering if you could offer up any tips, tricks or suggestions on what he might have success growing as a first timer.

- Oh, well, you know, even though he's up close to Canadia, they still have a decent summer.

So in a raised bed, he can grow, you know, lettuce and carrots and things like that early in the season, and then once the nights are reliably in the 50s, he can install the summer loving plants like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers.

Because it is not the longest season you are going to encounter, he should probably stick with short season varieties.

Any time you buy a seed or a plant, it should have a days to harvest.

With plants that you grow by seed like sweetcorn and string beans, that's an accurate number once the soil is warm,.

You know, if it says 60 days, you'll get your first string beans at 60 days.

If it is a plant that is typically started professionally or by you and then transplanted outside, that number is the days from the time you put a six to eight week old transplant into warm soil.

One of the keys is to remember not to jump the gun, that the nights have to be in the 50s before you put out the crops of summer.

But one of the intriguing things about growing that far north is he's going to have more hours of daylight than I will down in Pennsylvania.

You know, the higher you go, the more extreme the daylight and lack of daylight variations are.

So, you know, for instance, a lot of people in my region are going to plant around May 15th, provided the snow has finally melted by then!

As you get up into upper New York State, you know, more likely maybe a beginning day is June 1st.

But that still leaves you plenty of time.

What he needs to avoid is growing plants like tomatoes that have a very long days to harvest, like in the 90s or even 100.

But there's dozens of tomatoes, if not hundreds, that have a days to harvest in the 60s, and things like string beans and all that.

There's no lack of any plant specifically that he can grow, but he has to pay attention to what we call the DTH, the days to harvest.

And where he is, the shorter the number, the better the chance of success.

- Got it, so he wouldn't be growing brandywines.

- Exactly right.

- Got it.

- You know, it's possible with specialized greenhouses or hoop houses, but there are many midsize tomatoes that have a more rational days to harvest, like around 70.

And, you know, maybe you can grow him his brandywines and ship them and he'll send you something else.

But it is always good, especially when you're starting out, to be rational about what works in your region, because you can never guess the weather but you can prepare for it.

And if I lived up there, it would be all short season varieties.

And many catalogs specialize in early harvest tomatoes.

And as times have gone by, I have seen more and more large tomatoes with relatively short days to maturity.

And what you said with brandywine is so fabulous because I urge people not to fall in love with a specific variety but instead grow what their climate can help you succeed with.

- Perfect.

- All right, man.

- Yeah, thanks, Mike.

- All right, my pleasure.

Good luck to you and he.

888 492 9444.

Carol, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hello, Mike!

- Hello, Carol!

How are you doing?

- I am doing great.

I am in Spokane, Washington, on a beautiful, sunny day and it's going to be up to 50 degrees today.

- All right.

We're done with you.

Get out of here.

All right.

Next caller, please!

I only found my car the other day.

I wasn't sure what lump it was in the snow.

What can we do you for?

- Well, I have got an African violet that is absolutely baffling me.

I have three African violets that I've had for ten years.

They all three set on a tea cart in front of a big window that faces the north east.

And they get the same amount of light, the same amount of water, the same amount of food, everything.

And all of a sudden this white, if it makes any difference what color it is, African violet, it's blooming right now.

But all of its leaves are reaching up straight up in the air to the point that you almost have to separate them to see the blossoms.

And i don't know why it's doing this.

- African violets, as you probably know, are not true violets.

They're members of a very large plant family whose name I can't pronounce, even though the organization that supports this type of flower has tried to teach me for 22 years.

But they are unique plants.

You're right to keep them in the northeast as opposed to the southeast.

They can get burned pretty easily.

And it sounds like you're doing great.

This is not the traditional form.

It's a different color that's been bred over time, like with poinsettias, which have honestly gotten ridiculous.

And when you're doing a unique variety like this, you're going to have some crazy stuff happening.

So... - OK. - I think the solution is really easy.

I think you should cut... First, you should take good pictures of this, which apparently you have.

But, you know, we're still in a steam powered TV studio here.

And I would go in there with a pair of small scissors and I would take these leaves that are wrapping around it like a globe, and I would cut every one of them off, making sure that I didn't take more than a third of the existing leaves.

And that way you can see the flowers, which quite honestly is the point, correct?

- Uh huh, right.

- But because this seems to be a unique variety, I would take those cut leaves.

And have you ever propagated African violets?

- I have tried - Really?

- I haven't been successful.

- They're supposed to be easy!

- Yeah...

I have not tried very often.

- Here's what I want you to do.

Get a nice, clean bag of seed starting soil, soil-free mix, potting soil, anything that doesn't have chemical fertilizers or water holding crystals in it, and put them in little containers and saturate the soil completely.

And then you use a pencil or a chopstick or something like that to make a little hole in.

And then you drop in the stem and cover it up.

You don't jam it down, because that will destroy all the cells that would normally grow new roots.

And you should be able to propagate a huge number of these...

I'm going to name them globular white African violets.

Trademark registration mark.

And I think they would be well received by fans of African violets and the related species, which are, like, on the tip of my tongue, but I would pronounce it wrong anyway.

But you're obviously being successful.

And there are many plants, in my experience, that grow in an unusual way that covers up the flowers.

And for me, the answer is, well, cut away the stuff that's covering up the flowers!

But in your case, that's exactly what you use to propagate new African violets.

- OK and, you know, in the past, I think I have not used the entire stem.

I have only used the leaf.

- No, no.

You got to... - So it didn't have much.

Yeah, OK. - Yeah, you've got to go right down to the body of the plant and take the whole stem and have the soil premoistened or the soil free mix.

Don't shove it in.

Make a hole, drop it in, cover up around it and then keep it moist.

With African violets you don't want to be misting too much.

- No, I don't, I don't mist them.

- Yeah, you can mist the soil surface around it and you'll see immediately when it's started to grow new roots, the leaf itself will change dramatically.

- OK. - All right, well, thanks.

Thanks for calling.

- That's what I will do.

Thank you very much.

- My pleasure.

- I'll start a new baby.

OK!

- Yeah.

And then come here and clean out my ice dams.

OK?

- OK, will do.

- All right.

- Thank you, Mike.

I enjoy your show on Sunday mornings immensely.

- Oh, because we're on broadcast radio where you are.

Do you know the call letters?

- I do, actually, I hear you on KSFC 91.9.

- All right, good.

We love to do a shout out to our affiliate stations.

And I know we've been on the air for quite a while there, so thank you.

- Yes, you have.

All right.

And I always learn something from your show.

- I try to, too, but sometimes I fall asleep halfway through.

- All right.

You take care.

- Keep up the good work, Mike.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Bye bye.

- Bye bye.

- Well, it is inevitable.

It is time for the Question of the Week, which we're calling the best flowers for cutting.

Ann writes:, Now, when we say southeast Wisconsin, we're talking Milwaukee in the bullseye with Racine and Kenosha down at the bottom and Chicago not too far south, all of which are on the lovely shores of Lake Michigan, where the winds are felt to be legendary.

Having tried to walk forward through many gales in many places, I'll call Chicago the Lesser Windy City, compared to Oklahoma City, where I once did a credible Dorothy imitation but without the cyclone.

This is a digression, but it is also a warning to gardeners in these areas that winter wind will try and kill you personally while in the other seasons it will simply try and make your plants fall down, go boom.

So think about windbreaks.

Think about them a lot.

Back to this week's exciting feature.

I cut a lot of spring bulbs like daffodils and tulips to bring indoors early in the season, but I learned years ago that you can't mix and match them in the vase.

Daffodils must be vased alone, or they will shorten the life of the other cuttings involved.

And while spring bulbs do only bloom once a season, daffodils especially are reliable rebloomers.

Tulips not so much.

But the basic red ones are your best bet.

I have a clump of basic red tulips that has rebloomed reliably for over 40 years, and that's more than I can say for myself.

The other flowers I personally cut for indoor use are my roses.

They all promise at least one big flush for cutting and many roses will rebloom reliably throughout the season, even ones designated as one timers.

Just be sure to cut new flowers promptly and deadhead the faded ones.

Seed supplier and long time flower lover Renee Shepherd of Renee's Garden agrees with me about those early flowers.

Of course you start the season with bulbs like daffodils and tulips, she notes.

For annual flowers from seed go with zinnias and cosmos in different forms and colors as well as in mixes.

Also coreopsis, snapdragons, clarkia and tithonia.

One good perennial that she should be able to grow easily would be echinacea.

It was then that I realized that a cut flower growing professional lives about four miles from my house, Melanie DeVault, who together with husband George and son Don, the king of kombucha, run Pheasant Hill Farm in Veracruz, PA. Melanie has been selling cut flowers at farmers' markets for more years than I am allowed to reveal and also crafts seasonal bouquets and wedding flowers.

Sunflowers was her first choice, and I couldn't agree more.

I'm always drawn to them when they're on display at florist's and even at supermarkets.

They're easy to grow, she notes, adding that for indoor display, you want to stick with the pollen free varieties.

She adds that there's even a branded collection of sunflowers called the ProCut Series, whose varieties are chosen for maximum cut flower impact.

Sunflowers are ready to cut from planted seed in just 50 to 60 days, and you can plant them really close, as tight as four inches apart if you want to keep them in a nice bouquet size.

Plant a new run every three weeks and you'll never run out.

I'll add that sunflowers come in a dizzying array of different heights, colors and combinations of colors.

So go for it.

Melanie adds that there's also a series of zinnia varieties that are perfect for cutting, collectively called Beamy's giant, that's B-E-A-M-Y, and they're repeat bloomers if cut regularly and/or deadheaded.

Direct seed them in spring and they'll persist until fall.

Tithonia, Mexican sunflower is also a great choice.

Keep them cut and they'll rebloom like mad.

And finally, liatris is tall, dramatic and long lasting in the vase.

Speaking of a vase, Melanie says it should be as clean as a teacup.

The flower stems should be stripped bare of anything other than the actual flowers, and they should be cleaned under running water to keep dirt out of the picture.

Change the water daily, or as often as you can, and recut the stem every time the plants go into new water.

Don't expose your bouquets to direct sun.

In fact, the cooler the room, the longer those cut flowers will last.

Picking - obviously, you want to pick just as the flowers are hitting their peak, but Melanie adds that they should also pass the wiggle test.

The stem has to be firm and upright, she stresses.

If it wiggles, wait.

Also pick early in the morning or in the evening, never in the heat of the day or the flowers just won't last.

Place them in water right away when you cut them.

Bring them inside into your workspace, strip off everything below the flowers, rinse the stems well, cut another inch off the bottoms and then drop them immediately into that clean vase filled with clean water.

No city tap water.

Well, that sure was some interesting information about having a great cutting garden, now wasn't it?

Luckily for yous, the Question of the Week appears in print at the Gardens Alive website.

To read it over at your "leesure" or your "lesure", just click the link for the Question of the Week at our website, which is still and will forever be: Gardens Alive supports the You Bet Your Garden Question of the Week, and you will always find the latest Question of the Week where?

At the Gardens Alive website.

You Bet Your Garden is a half hour public television show, an hour long public radio show and podcast, all produced and delivered to you weekly by Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA. Our radio show is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

You Bet Your Garden was created by Mike McGrath.

Mike McGrath was created when Professor Challenger discovered the Lost World on an ancient plateau and didn't notice the hitchhiker in the brontosaurus cage when he brought his specimens back home.

Yikes, my producer is threatening to sabotage my sunflowers if I don't get out of the studio.

We must be out of time.

But you can contact us any time at our brand new number: Send us your email, your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse teeming towards our garden shore at: You'll find all of this contact information and maybe even our new phone number at our website, YouBetYourGarden.org, where you also find the answers to all your gardening questions, audio of this show, video of this show, audio and video of old shows and our internationally adored podcast.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath, still digging out from under my snow, hoping that my garlic still looks good and worrying about how I'll be able to plant my peas on St. Patrick's Day.

But raise a glass of green beer, wish me luck and I'll see you again next week.