You Bet Your Garden S4 Ep37 Wildflower: Flea Bane

From the Pollinating studios of University at Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, P.A.

It is time for another plant appreciating episode of chemical free horticultural high jinks.

You bet your garden.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

Did you ever wonder about those lovely little daisy like flowers that appear in the spring?

On today's show, I'll tell you all about my personal favorite wildflower, the strangely named Flea Bane.

Plus, we interview the physician whose expert testimony forced Roundup to pay off.

And your fabulous phone call questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and boastfully benign beautification.

So stay right where you are.

Cats and kittens, because it's all coming up faster than you banishing your fleas with a wildflower.

In the meantime, I want to announce that I will appear live at the Exeter Public Library in Redding on Wednesday, June 7th, at 6:30 p.m.. You'll find more information at the events section of our website.

You bet.

Your garden dot 0rg.

I'll also be appearing for the Avalon Free Public Library at Surfside Park in Avalon, New Jersey, on Monday, July 31st at 7 p.m..

It's an outdoor event, so bring some blankets, some beach chairs, and maybe even a picnic basket.

The event is free and we can skedaddle indoors if weather is less than climate.

You'll find more information at the events section of our website.

You bet.

Your garden dot 0rg.

And now on with the show.

8888492 9444.

So let us welcome George.

Hi, Mike.

How are you doing today?

I'm just Ducky.

How is George?

Very well, thank you.

Oh, right.

Oh, where is George?

Very well.

Uh, Redding, Pennsylvania.

Okay.

All right.

What can we do for George?

Uh, a couple of questions.

Uh, dogwoods.

We have problems with dogwoods.

I know they are probably 45, 50 years old, but my mother's concerned.

The leaves are curling, and there's a a large amount of lichens growing and growing on the bark.

And my mom's concerned that if I trim them, they're contagious and will spread to my skin.

And I said, I do not think so, Mom, but.

Well, we'll ask Mike and see what he says.

Spread to your skin.

Yeah, well, my mom's 93, and she's has concerns about everything.

Oh, your mom's not lichen.

Your lichen?

No, no, she doesn't know there's one tree in particular.

I said your picture of it looks it's in a deep state of demise.

And I said, Mom, we gotta cut it down.

She's like, No, there's one limb that's still growing and flowering.

I'm like, Okay, the the birds like to stand on the purchase of whatnot, but I think the neighbors are a little bit disgusted with it, but.

Well, um, and does this tree have similar sound?

Does your mom really like this tree?

No, she has no great attachment to it.

She just likes to live Things live as long as they possibly can and thinks they should die in row.

And I said, we all ask Mike and see if we should replant one.

And if so, should it be white or pink as one stronger or more resilient to disease than the other?

Um, dogwoods don't like wet feet and they they have a problem in full sun, which your dogwood appears to be in.

Oh, okay.

Gotcha.

So I other one is The other one is in shade from high oaks in the western part of the district.

So that might be why it's doing so much better.

So it is doing much better.

Yeah.

Lichen does well prefers obviously damp conditions cause beard is not deadly.

It is not directly harming the tree, but it is showing you that the tree is on its way out.

Okay.

Thank you.

Now, with these kind of, uh, organisms, what I like to do is when.

When I cut down a tree or something like that, or we have to move moss out of an area, We take the moss or the lichen, and we get a long piece of wood, like the biggest part of the trunk of the tree, and we decorate it with the moss and the lichen and make it a central feature.

All you got to do is keep it somewhat shaded and moist, and we'll some of the some of these things will actually sprout what would be primitive flowers and all the all sorts.

You can see how beautiful the colors are.

Right.

That sounds interesting.

Yeah.

It's like Tipitina on old Copper.

So, yes, you should cut now.

Are you going to cut it down yourself?

Yes.

Move that car.

No, The whole VW.

Yes.

Okay, I'll do it.

And everything has an electrical problem, but I'll move it.

Yeah, so do I.

Have you taken down big trees before?

Yes.

Okay.

See, you got a pole pruner.

You've got a hard hat, you've got safety glasses.

And you know, to take off small chunks at a time, especially as you work towards the top of the tree.

I hear you.

So tell your mother I said so, and I will.

And say hi for me.

We love your program.

And you're definitely a savant of botany.

Yeah, I'm a seven idiot savant.

Uh, yeah.

All right.

Take care, man.

Bye.

Bye.

Okay.

Thank you.

See you at the library.

You got it.

Eight, eight, eight, 492 9444.

Sandy, welcome to you.

Bet your garden.

Hi, Mike.

How you doing?

I'm just.

Ducky.

Sandy, How are you?

I'm good.

I figured.

Yeah, I'm trouble out here in Egg Harbor Township with my, uh.

My tree roots invaded my raised bed.

My husband doesn't want to move the garden.

Okay, well, that's understandable.

Um, do we know what kind of roots got in there?

There is a big pine tree, maple trees.

There's bushes, like, all within, like, 15 feet of the garden and it looks like they're coming in from all sides.

Now, I'm looking at a picture here of concrete blocks, cinder blocks with an overturned wheelbarrow.

Is this a raised bed that I'm looking at, or is it a compost bin?

No, it's a raised bed.

Okay.

Because it and my husband was digging it out and, uh, just kind of showing you what we were fighting.

Okay.

And I'm looking at this picture, and there's a note here.

Could using soaker hoses have contributed to this?

Um, and what were six inches down?

The roots of the soaker hoses, the soaker hose.

Okay.

When something like this happens, you can, you know, spend a little bit of time removing as much as the roots as you can.

And then if you want to just be done with this problem, you would install what's called rhizome barrier that would, you know, you'd make a little trench, you'd put the rhizome barrier in there.

Not better to have it installed professionally, but that's up to you.

And that would prevent the roots from coming through.

They would simply turn to the side when they got to the rhizome barrier.

The other option is to make the bed much higher.

What I would recommend is you lay down a hardware cloth, which is metal that prevents roots and things from coming through, and then instead of like a foot high or whatever, you make the you make the bed a good two feet high.

All right.

Sounds good.

Thanks, Mike.

All right.

Good luck to you.

All right.

It is time to welcome our very special guest, Dr. Johnny NAIB Han, M.D., M.D.

B.A.

He is the author of Toxic Exposure, a new book subtitled The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials and the Search for Justice.

In essence, you became an expert witness, among others, in at least two groundbreaking trials centered around Roundup.

Now, let's start by asking you why the law firm contacted you to be an expert witness.

Given my expertise in lymphoma and in cancer, somehow they heard about me and my name.

And then I was contacted by the Miller firm originally asking me about my opinion on Roundup and lymphoma and whether I would be willing to review the evidence.

Take a look at the information and testify.

If I find the data compelling on behalf of the patients that they were representing.

And the first patient you were involved with was a mr. Johnson, is that correct?

Do I remember?

Yes, Correct.

So the first case was actually Johnson against Monsanto.

This was the first case that was ever brought against Monsanto by a patient because of Roundup and glyphosate and if I remember correctly, Mr. Johnson was a groundskeeper of some sort and was told the spray roundup to kill weeds.

Yes, he was a groundskeeper in California and he basically worked five days a week where he would spray roundup on schoolyards everywhere he was told to.

And and you know, he would actually wear protective gears.

But again, he was never told that there was any risk between Roundup and possibly any form of cancer or lymphoma.

And Monsanto, again, the makers of Roundup, they were certainly not willing to admit to any connection.

No, no, absolutely not.

The way I look at things, you could disagree and you may not say you may not believe the evidence that is, let's say, coming out of the of various studies and various research.

But you should acknowledge as the manufacturer, you should say, well, there's something that came out.

We we think there may be a risk, but this is what you could do to minimize or mitigate the risk.

No, they actually just discounted the evidence.

They did not believe that any of the information is accurate.

And Mr. Johnson, in fact, when he started developing Rash on his body.

Mm hmm.

And he wasn't sure why it was.

He did call Monsanto, and he never got a call back.

And they put you through the ringer.

You and the lawyers and your fellow expert witnesses.

They went after you six times sideways.

Yeah.

It's not easy to be interrogated by these lawyers.

Monsanto has deep pockets.

They got the best lawyers out there trying to discredit the witnesses and.

And the science and everything possible.

But I'm glad that in the three trials I testified in, which were the first three trials ever, the jury found it for the patients.

And how much was Mr. Johnson awarded?

Well, the original you know, as you know, I think both parties usually, you know, they're going to appeal whatever verdict they actually get.

So the original verdict was north of 200 million, including some punitive damages and things like that.

But, you know, there an appeal and there's lot of things that I describe in the book, frankly.

I try to take the reader through what I went through.

And I think eventually Mr. Johnson was awarded between 20 to $25 million.

They actually settled with four over four with over 100,000 patients or 11 billion plus dollars.

Now, Monsanto and their parent company, as you know, Bayer at Monsanto, but they would say they admitted no guilt.

Right.

This is what we just going to settle.

And I don't know my call me crazy, but if you're paying $11 billion, probably you're guilty.

Well, I won't call you crazy.

You can do that to me.

And that's the way that works on this show.

Okay.

Now, you mentioned Monsanto being acquired by Bayer, which most people know from Bayer Aspirin, but which I know is perhaps the biggest pesticide conglomerate on the planet.

And they bought Monsanto in the middle of all this.

And there was a stockholder revolt.

And I love one of the lines you used here quoting somebody management infected a healthy bear with the Monsanto virus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll tell you.

So a few things on that that are worth mentioning.

So Bayer started the conversations with Monsanto in 2016, the deal and then the litigation, the lawsuits start started piling up.

I think that Bayer underestimated how these lawsuits are going to affect shareholders and share prices.

They paid $63 billion to acquire Monsanto and then their share prices dropped by two thirds.

So they lost so much market cap.

They paid a lot of money.

In my opinion.

Mike, I think they were arrogant.

I think it's one of those things where you think, well, there's no way we're going to be found guilty.

They underestimated their opponents.

They were too cocky and just thinking we're going to be fine.

Plus, they did not do enough due diligence about the science to appreciate the possibility that they could be getting into, you know, in bed with a company that manufactures something that could be very toxic.

As we close this interview.

I'm just going to read from your book.

Bayer announced that it will stop all U.S. sales of Roundup for residential use and remove current versions of Roundup from store shelves by 2023.

We are in the middle of 2023.

So what they did, Bayer said.

We are going to remove Roundup from the shelves for residential use.

So if you're not a farmer or a pesticide applicator or license specified applicator, you cannot get Roundup in its current form from Home Depot or Walmart or wherever.

They promise they are going to take that, take care of that in 2023.

And they said, We are doing this not because we're guilty, we are not guilty, we are not admitting guilt, but we're doing this just because of the litigation matters and because when we have like fewer lawsuits.

I guess so.

But they haven't really done that yet.

I mean, we'll have to see.

I still see it on the shelves.

I still can go and buy it right now.

I also don't know what they're going to replace it with.

I think it's important to know what is going to be replaced with.

So if you are just want to just, you know, use it, use something on your lawn.

What can you use?

Because they said we're going to replace it by something, by something different.

We could go on for a long time here, but thank you for being part of.

I feel like we're in Casablanca now.

Thank you for being part of the fight.

And the book is Toxic Exposure, The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials and the Search for Justice by Dr. Charlie NABE Can.

All right.

Well, thank you again for being here, and you're coming back.

Be happy to.

Thank you so much and keep up the good fight.

My friend.

You too, as always.

As inevitable as Thanos, it's time for the question of the week.

Good thing I can't snap my fingers.

Right.

Which we're calling Flea Bane, the misunderstood native Pollinator Plant.

Heather in Rock Vale, Tennessee.

Or did she mean to type?

Rock Ville writes, We have a plant that I believe is called Flea Bane.

It's growing in various spots in the grass throughout our yard, and my husband has mowed around the plants the last couple of years because we really enjoy the flowers.

The bees seem to really like them too.

I tried to look up whether or not it's invasive, but there seem to be different types of flea bane and the information I'm finding is very mixed.

Do you know if it is invasive and if so, is it harmful to anything?

Happy spring and thanks so much.

Well, thank you, Heather.

This is one of my absolute favorite plants and I do the same as you.

We mow around it where possible, and if it shows up in the middle of a garden pathway we transplanted into containers, you can never have too many of these beautiful, small daisy like flowers.

And the news about the plant is all good.

It is not in the least invasive and is in fact a North American native excellent pollinator plant.

And it's deer resistant.

But I'm not surprised that the information you found was a bit confusing, as there are many types, colors and names of this plant.

Flea Bane is a member of a large order of flowering plants known as the Aster Rallies.

At least I hope that's how you pronounce it, comprising 11 families.

These families contain an estimated 25,000 species and include daisies, asters and sunflowers.

All have what are called composite flowers formed from many florets to create that familiar bullseye pattern plants with comp as it flowers are some of the best at attracting beneficial insects and pollinators.

I especially treasure flea bane because the flower heads are tiny, allowing the smallest of beneficial insects and native bees to access their pollen and nectar.

They also appear early in the season when other sources of pollen and nectar may be scarce.

Butterflies and dragonflies, which are the number one predator of mosquitoes, also visit the flowers and songbirds, Eat the seeds.

The lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center notes that the name Flea Bane quote, to banish fleas comes from a Native American belief that the dried and crushed flower heads would repel fleas in a dwelling.

That's not much of a stretch, really, when you realize that the dried and crushed flowers of one of its cousins, the pyrethrum Daisy, have been proven to be very effective at repelling insects and ticks.

Now, while researching this article, I was both surprised and delighted to find that one variety is known as Philadel phia flea bane, although I found it on the Minnesota Wildflowers page.

Go figure.

Anyway, it is noted there that Philly Flea Bane is one of the most common types found in North America and blooms earlier than common annual flea bane or prairie flea bane.

The flower petals are sometimes white, but more often pink, each with a yellow pollen filled disc at the center.

Philly Flea Bane also has a bad habit of choking in the playoffs and mispronouncing the word water.

Another source notes that Philly Flea Bane is more of a woodland plant, while common or annual flea.

Bane is the one that we mostly see in gardens, lawns and on roadsides.

Annual flea Bane has white flowers and is as named an annual plant that persists from season to season by dropping seed.

Prairie Flea Bane is said to be a somewhat smaller plant with white petals that are often tinged with blue or pink.

There's also a, quote, smooth flea bane and a true flea bane that is strangely named Poore Robins planting.

Now, actual planting is a completely different plant, a common weed that is properly pronounced plantain.

Most of you will probably have spent quite some time pollen planting and then being unable to correctly express what you were doing.

Where are you planting their pollen?

Make up your mind.

And of course, neither is related to the similarly named banana like fruit.

Anyway, smooth and poor Robin Flea Bane are both perennial plants.

While Minnesota notes wisely and I quote Annual flea, Bane is an annual end quote.

Wait.

Here's another one.

Seaside Daisies native to the West Coast are striking examples of flea bane.

Sometimes called Seaside.

Flea, Bane Beach.

Flea.

Bane and beach Aster.

They're a bit lower growing than the others.

Perennials and flowers are a beautiful blend of pinkish purple.

There are named varieties like Cape Sebastian Seaside, Daisy and Santa Barbara Daisy available.

They are all said to be hardy down to 15 degrees Fahrenheit and can tolerate heat in the triple digits.

Members of this large group of coastal flea banes are used for dune protection and are also found in San Simeon National Park.

A paradise I someday yearn to return to.

Several types of flea bane are also host plants for the larval form of the lynx flower moth.

An intriguing looking non pest moth found east of the Rockies, whose adult form pollinates flowers and probably feeds lots of bats.

Philadelphia Flea Bane is the host plant of the northern metal mark.

While the West Coast flea bans are food for northern checker spot caterpillars, Flea Bane is amazing.

It feeds them coming and going.

The plant is not poisonous per say, but don't let your dog, cat, child or husband munch on a lot of them because as the Three Stooges wisely have sung, they'll awake with a tummy ache.

Well, that's here was some interesting information about a fabulous little flower, now, wasn't it?

Luckily for use, the question of the week appears in print at the Gardens Alive website to read it over at your leisure or your leisure, just click the link for the Question of the week at our website, which is still and will forever be.

You bet your garden.

Oh, R.G.

Gardens Alive supports the you bet your garden question of the week and you will always find the latest question of the week at the Gardens Alive website.

You bet.

Your garden is a half hour public television show available for viewing on PBS 39 PBS, 39 Extra, PBS, Passport and our Web.

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You Bet Your Garden was created by Mike McGrath.

Mike McGrath was created by a crazed mad scientist deep in the Balkans.

Yikes.

My producer is threatening to filch my Lee Bain if I don't get out of the studio.

We must be out of time.

But you can call us any time at 888492 9444 or send us your email, your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse teaming towards our garden.

Sure.

At y.

B y g a w lv t dot 0rg.

If you don't include your location guide on now we'll scratch the side of your car or something.

I'm your host and executive producer because nobody else wanted the job.

Mike McGrath And I'll be planting, digging, weeding and wiping my brow until I can see you again next week.

Okay.

All together now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.