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Kerry Nolan: It's All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kerry Nolan, in for Allison Stewart. Yesterday was the first day of spring, which means it is officially time to begin fretting over the roses in the front yard or the seeds for the fire escape vegetable garden. Yes, folks, spring, especially today, is in the air. We called plant doctor, Chris.

Chris Satch is a professor at the New York Botanical Gardens, and he also has his own plant consultancy building called NYC Plant Help. He's here with me in the studio and he's going to give us all the advice about caring for your plants. If you have questions about your spring plants, maybe you want to know when the best time is to plant certain things, how to handle fluctuating temperatures in the early spring. Give us a call at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692.

Do you have a dying plant and you're not sure why, or you want to know what the best kind of plant you should buy for a certain environment or space? Give us a call. Again, the number is 212-433-WNYC. Well, thank you so much for being here today, Chris, and happy spring.

Chris Satch: Happy spring. Happy to be here.

Kerry Nolan: Let's talk a little bit about indoor plants. Let's start off with that. Well, actually, you know what? Let's not. Let's talk about the fluctuating temperatures, that tug of war right between winter and spring. Today, beautiful day, 55 degrees, might go up into the 60s. You know that maybe over the weekend, it's going to be in the 40s.

Chris Satch: That's right.

Kerry Nolan: If you have outdoor plants, which ones do you need to protect and which ones can you just let be?

Chris Satch: Yes, absolutely. I do consultations or NYC Plant Help does consultations for this kind of stuff all the time. What I would advise most gardeners, if you are gardening outdoors, pay attention to the nightly low temperatures, not necessarily the daily highs, but the nightly lows because that will dictate whether or not you can have sensitive plants outside, whether or not you have to protect them, whether maybe they've budded early because we have had a very mild winter this year.

I'm seeing a lot of plants around the city that are what I would call prematurely breaking their buds. If we do get a hard frost, you know, a night that goes into the 20s, I would say, I would call that a harder frost, and those plants might be decimated. It's important to keep an eye on the lows to make sure that you are padding your plants and protecting your plants if they have broken their buds early with burlap or tarp or something like that at night, and then you would remove it during the daytime. Then any kind of sensitive plants that you would think about putting outside, I would hold off on until about last frost.

Kerry Nolan: In this area, in the New York City, Northern New Jersey area, when is the last frost reliably?

Chris Satch: Reliably, about April 15th for the city. And then in New Jersey, as you get further out into the mountains of Northwestern New Jersey, it's probably closer to May 1st. Depending on where you are, your elevation, your closeness to the ocean. The closer you are to the ocean, the earlier you can get. I would say for the city, April 15th.

Kerry Nolan: That's very interesting. Just anecdotally, I plant tomatoes because it's the law in New Jersey that you have to grow your own tomatoes.

Chris Satch: That's right.

Kerry Nolan: We've always been told, don't put the plants outside until at least Mother's Day. That's the second week of May. Is that too late?

Chris Satch: It depends on the year. There's last frost and there's absolute last frost. Absolute last frost, there has never been a record after that date. I know that's May 15th for our entire region. There's no recorded frost after that. If there is, it's like a freak incident, but you want to pay attention to, especially if you're putting something sensitive like tomatoes or peppers outside and you want to plant them outside, really just pay attention to those nightly lows.

If we're getting nights into the 40s and 50s, I would say probably into the 50s, that's a really great time to start planting things outside regardless of what the arbitrary date is. Really, each year, the answer is slightly different. That's why we have to keep asking ourselves every year, "Oh, when should I put my plants outside?" I would really pay attention to the temperatures. If you get the 10-day or the 2-week forecast and it's April 2nd or 3rd and there's nothing forecasted to be lower than in the 40s, you could probably start acclimating your plants and what we call hardening them off, putting them outside.

Kerry Nolan: Let's talk a little bit about seeding. You recommend that folks begin seeding indoors right now.

Chris Satch: That's right.

Kerry Nolan: Why?

Chris Satch: Right now, we're about anywhere between three weeks to about a month plus from planting. That'll give your seedlings enough time to establish themselves and be large enough so that you can plant them outside. You would plant your sensitive plants indoors right now and not root vegetables. You want to make sure that you're not starting carrots indoors, you're not starting beets indoors, you're not starting potatoes indoors. You want to start those either a direct sow, which is just you plant the seeds directly in the ground where they're going to grow all year, or for potatoes, you'd plant them in the fall.

Kerry Nolan: Is it too early to plant things like peas and spinach and salad greens, things that tend to bolt in the hot weather?

Chris Satch: Yes, I would say about a month out from last frost, so month before. Now would be the time you can actually start, and we have actually fantastic weather for planting things like kale, peas, radishes, beets, arugula, carrots. Again, we have a native carrot to this area.

Kerry Nolan: Really?

Chris Satch: It's poisonous, so don't eat that carrot, but if you do your research and you do find a wild native to whatever you're planting, just follow the schedule of whatever that is. We have wild carrots.

Kerry Nolan: Oh, interesting.

Chris Satch: We also have Queen Anne's lace, which is in the carrot family. If you've ever driven up and down the side of the road, you see in late summer, these big poofy white flowers that are flat on the top. That's Queen Anne's lace. That's in the carrot family, and that's carrot bolting.

Kerry Nolan: We're talking with Dr. Chris, the plant doctor, and we'd love to hear from you. Our number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Emily in Ossining, welcome to All Of It.

Emily: Hi there.

Kerry Nolan: Hi.

Chris Satch: Hi.

Emily: Hi there. Thank you so much. Hi. I'm pretty good with my house plants and outdoors, but I have a Dracaena marginata. I have several of them, but one of them has all these little teeny bugs that kind of hang out near the soil and fly around. I try to get rid of them. I've even taken the plant out of the pot, put in new soil, washed the roots, and it's just that one plant.

I don't know if it has anything to do with being in a plastic pot. I have another one that's also in, not a ceramic pot like an earthenware pot, and that doesn't get the bugs. It's a much bigger one. I have another one that I'm starting for a friend, and that doesn't have the bugs. I don't know what to do.

Chris Satch: It sounds like what you have are called fungus gnats. Fungus gnats, they set up shop in soil that stays too wet for too long. A lot of things will say online, oh, it's overwatering. I get calls for fungus gnats here in the city all the time. Anyone else who has problems with fungus gnats, we do treat for them. The best thing to do for fungus gnats to prevent them, because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, is to make sure that that plant is drying out fast enough.

Now, that means moving it to more light and moving it to a warmer location. That'll make your plant's soil dry faster between waterings, and if the plant's soil dries completely between two waterings, then you, in theory, should not have a problem with fungus gnats. I have over 300 plants in my Manhattan apartment, and, no, I'm off the deep end.

Kerry Nolan: Wow.

Chris Satch: Yes. I have very few, if almost zero, fungus gnats. The only fungus gnats I have are in the carnivorous terrarium, and they're supposed to be there anyway for the carnivorous plants to get at, but if you have fungus gnats, just dryer plant out a little more, increase the light, especially if it's an indoor plant. There are treatments out there for fungus gnats if you really have a problem with them, but just making it unfavorable for them is the best way to get rid of them.

Kerry Nolan: Thanks for your call. Christine in West Orange, welcome to All Of It.

Christine: Thank you so much for taking my call. I've been stressing out about this. I bought these beautiful tool bulbs in the late fall, early winter, and I neglected to get them in the ground, and they've been in my garage, and now it's march. Can I still put them in the ground? Will they bloom? Do I put them in the fridge for next year? Help me. What do I do, please?

Chris Satch: I would say plant them. The best time to plant them is in the fall, but there's nothing stopping you from planting them in the springtime, especially if they've already started to come out. If you start to see the beginnings of leaves and you start to see new roots coming out, I would just plan it straight out.

Whether or not it'll flower this year, it may flower this year, it probably will flower this year, especially if it's a newer bulb that you recently purchased. It has a lot of energy stored inside of it. It may not bloom as well as if you had planted it in the fall, but it should bloom. Should, I'll put a star in there. [laughs]

Kerry Nolan: Thank you so much for your call, Christine. Healthy soil is really important, particularly for indoor plants. Good soil though, you really have to plan ahead and know what you're doing and have some information at your fingertips. What do you recommend people do to ensure the health of these indoor plants? Then we can talk outdoor too.

Chris Satch: Yes, really great question. Indoor plants, now is the time for repotting. I say, if it's been more than a year, year and a half since you've last repotted your plant, go ahead and repot your plant. Shameless plug, we offer repotting services for plants in people's homes. Yes, choosing the right soil, I get asked this question a lot. The correct answer is a long-winded complicated answer that I'm going to try to simplify.

Really, things like watering, things like media to plant my plantain, it's all on a sliding scale, and that depends on your behavior. If you're someone who's doting, and you want to interact and water your plants all the time, multiple times a week, then you would want to plant in a medium that is more coarse and more well-draining. If you are someone who likes to set it and forget it, sometimes, like me, who forgets to take care of your plants, you would want to then settle for a medium that is more water retaining.

Now, for most intents and purposes, regular potting mix is totally fine. I've gone down a long rabbit hole of discussions and debates even within other experts in the horticulture community about what is the right soil to use, this needs this, do you need succulent soil for succulents. You can make most plants grow in regular potting mix, you just have to be careful with your watering and adjust that accordingly. For most of your house plants, there's no need to go any fancier than just regular potting mix.

Kerry Nolan: How do you prep the soil for outdoor plants, say, vegetables or flowers too?

Chris Satch: Well, first, I would say, right now is a really great time to test your soil and really understand what's going on in your ground right now so you can prepare it. For example, if you know you're growing in a very acidic soil, you find out that, "Oh, my soil is pH of five or lower, I might need to amend my soil with a pound of lime or something like that," whatever the application rates are for whatever you're trying to adjust the soil for. Now is the time to adjust the soil. Now is the time to if you have compost work it into your soil. There's a lot of differences in opinion within the horticulture community. My opinion is now is the time to flip over the soil, if you are a soil flipper overer, and add that compost.

My grandfather, he still gardens and he adds Miracle-Gro Potting Mix to his outdoor soil sometimes to help even it out and keep it as nutritious as possible. There's egg shells and coffee grinds, you can work in. I would recommend composting those first, but I've seen success with that. Then also a little bit of granular fertilizer at the bottom, about a foot down if you bury it. A lot of that fertilizer, especially the immobile nutrients, they'll stay there. The mobile nutrients might wash away, so it might be a little wasteful, but it does make a difference, I found.

Kerry Nolan: We're talking with Plant Doctor Chris, aka Chris Satch, he's a professor at the New York Botanical Gardens. We're taking your calls. If you're holding, please hold, we're going to take a quick break and come back with your phone calls and lots more questions about gardening, now that it's spring. Stay with us.

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It's All of It on WNYC. I'm Kerry Nolan, in for Alison Stewart. My guest is Plant Doctor Chris, aka Chris Satch. He is a professor at the New York Botanical Gardens. He also has his own plant consultancy business called NYC Plant Help. He does home visits to diagnose, heal, and teach you about your plants, and how to take care of them. Since it's spring, we're talking about spring plant care, and we're taking your calls. Our number is 212-433-9692. That's 212-433 WNYC. Joe in Hamilton Heights, welcome to All of It.

Joe: Hi there. Chris, I am one of the rare people who have actually grass in my backyard. I have a real difficulty with squirrels digging up everything, even my plants. My plants, I've come up with putting bricks around them so they can't dig, but my grass, it's a losing battle, they dig and dig. Do you have any suggestion to try to discourage a squirrel from digging up your grass?

Chris Satch: That is a question that plagues us, and squirrels plague us in our gardens every single year. They are a tough nut to crack, pun intended. What you really want to do for squirrels is, just like with fungus gnats, or really any pest, you want to make the conditions for them as unfavorable as possible.

Now, if you're growing a garden for food, obviously, the squirrels are coming for the food. If you're just having an ornamental garden, it's much easier to dissuade them because they're not particularly interested in your rhododendrons or your flowers or things like that, but they will be interested in your vegetables and your fruits just as much as you are.

I've heard of varying mixtures of success of people spraying a mixture of chili oil and soap all over their plants. I've heard varying success stories with the high-frequency sound makers that they turn on and they emit a high-frequency pitch that the squirrels can hear, but it turns out, probably, your dogs and cats can hear that frequency as well. If you don't have pets, then maybe that's an option, but if you do have pets, they might actually react to that.

You can also physically make a barrier. You can put chicken wire around, all the sides, and the top. I've seen some people construct mini-greenhouses, I don't know if you have the luxury of space to do that because physically keeping them out is probably the best way of keeping them out. They are still technically rodents, they will squeeze through any small hole they can get. Not every hole that's being dug is necessarily from them.

I have seen rats, New York City rats climb all the way up to the fifth-floor roof of a fifth-floor walk-up and start digging and all kinds of things. It might not be squirrels, it might be the other kind of vermin, but either way, the solution is still the same, make it unfavorable. Try to remove any standing water that they might find drinkable, so if you have a bird bath or a bird fountain, you might want to consider not helping the birds out. There's a lot of different options with varying success, but as far as I'm aware, there's no surefire way to get rid of them. That's my best answer.

Kerry Nolan: Thanks for your call. Speaking of chicken wire and deterring rodents, I had heard that if you're going to plant certain bulbs, that if you plant the bulb and then put a little bit of chicken wire on top of the bulb and then put the soil on top, that that helps as a deterrent.

Chris Satch: Yes, some folks do have varying levels of success with the very fine-grade chicken wire, the very--

Kerry Nolan: Almost like a screen.

Chris Satch: Like a screen, yes. That will help deter. Although they can claw their way through it if they're determined enough, just like rats can chew wires and successfully cut wires that way, they can also successfully go through that. It is a deterrent and it is very unfavorable to them. That is a way to try to reduce the amount of damage you have until those bulbs do come up.

Kerry Nolan: Lindsay in Brooklyn, you're on the air.

Lindsay: Hi. Thanks so much for taking my call. I have been known to kill indoor plants, but I've been doing really well lately. I have one plant that's lasted for now over a year, it's a wandering dude, which I hear is now the new PC way to name that plant. It is so beautiful and super long. However, right at the base, the leaves are turning a little brown and they're just dried out. I'm not sure, is the plant dying, is it because of the season, and what can I do to help it thrive?

Chris Satch: Here's an interesting answer for you. That is if I'm remembering my names correctly, the Latin name should be Tradescantia. I'm sure I'll get yelled at if I get that wrong, which happens from time to time. Plants grow in relation to light. Light is their food because there's no calories in soil, there's no calories in water, there's no calories in fertilizer. Light is what they eat.

Now, Tradescantia, they're shamblers, they grow along the ground in their native environment. The fact that it's growing and shambling and hanging around, that's normal, that's fine. The leaves dying at the base, what happens is if you're growing that indoors, you have a limited amount of light. For whatever quantity of light you're getting, that can only support a certain number of leaves. You've reached the maximum capacity that that plant or the maximum number of leaves that that plant can grow for the amount of light you're giving it.

You have two options. You can either trim the plant back, so that way, it has fewer leaves and then will sprout new growths and grow more leaves and be more bushy, or you can increase the light that it's getting in order to make it make more leaves.

You'll also probably have noticed that it stopped growing or it grows very slowly now or the new growth is smaller than the old growth. All of that means that it's maxed out the amount of light that it has. It is normal for plants to just discard their older leaves when they do that. Usually, they'll grow a leaf, toss a leaf, grow a leaf, toss a leaf in equilibrium. Like I said, before, everything's on a sliding scale. Everything's in tune with equilibrium. I hope that helps.

Kerry Nolan: Thanks for your call. Let's go back outside. Another tip you mentioned that listeners should think about, we all should think about, is pruning plants like roses and other woody stemmed plants. Why is pruning important?

Chris Satch: Pruning's important for a lot of reasons. Pruning is important for outdoor disease resistance. If the plant is growing too bushy and it rains, the inside of that plant or wherever it's super bushy can't dry as fast. You want to prune it to thin it out so that more airflow can come through, so that way, you don't get any foliar infections or ultimately fruit infections if you're growing, if that's a fruit plant.

We also prune in order to shape the plant into a desired shape. Maybe you care about what it looks like, maybe you don't care about what it looks like, but it does help shape the plant. It does help reduce disease, and it also helps stimulate growth. If it gets too tall and you can't collect the berries from all the way up there, then you want to trim it down, so that way, the new branches are much lower and you can collect the berries from them.

Kerry Nolan: There are two schools of thought when it comes to things like hydrangeas. There are those who will cut them down to the ground in the fall. There are those who just say, let it go, because they'll leaf off old wood. Do you have any thoughts on that one way or the other?

Chris Satch: It depends on the hydrangea because there's a lot of them. If you want to know about a specific one, you would have to email me at nycplantdoctor.com.

Kerry Nolan: I may just do that. Let's go back to the phones. How about line four? Kira in Brooklyn. Hi, Kira. Welcome to All Of It.

Kira: Hi. Thank you. I have these beautiful, I don't know what they're called. They're lilies. They're orange lilies in my garden, and they've been there since I moved in. They're in the middle of the garden, and I'd love to transplant them to the edges of the garden. Is that possible without killing them because I love them?

Chris Satch: Now is the time of year to transplant things. Spring is a time of action as well as fall is a time for action. If you see the plant has sprouted, I'm going to take a wild guess and probably say that what you have are wood lilies. You can definitely dig them up, but when you dig them up, make sure you get as many of the roots as possible and that you dig the next hole, or wherever you're trying to transplant them, just as deep, if not just a tickle deeper, maybe about a half inch or an inch deeper than what you pulled them up off of, because I've noticed with some lilies is that they start growing a little close to the surface. Some of them do, some of them don't. You want to make sure that you're planting them at the right depth. Yes, you can definitely move them.

Kerry Nolan: Thanks for your call. Louisa in Middle Six County, New Jersey. Welcome to All of It.

Louisa: Hi. Thank you. Calling regarding anthuriums that I'm growing indoors. Very nice light. They're doing great, but I want to know how to increase the amount of flowers because I have a lot of leaves. Should I be cutting the leaves or any specific food that I should be giving my anthuriums?

Chris Satch: Yes. Anthuriums, as you've mentioned, they're pretty easy to grow. They're very leafy plants, and people grow them more for leaves than for flowers. Now, my recommendation is if you are a flower person, to grow a different plant, to grow orchids maybe instead. If you do want more flowers on your anthurium, what I would do is not trim the leaves. I would fertilize it more and I would increase the light because light is energy and plants collect that energy. All leaves are, are just natural solar panels that collect that light energy and allow the plant to do things.

The more light you give it, the more things it can do. More light equals more flowers, more fertilizer equals more flowers. If you combine the two, you should have a lot of flowers. Also, if you're looking for flowers, also be open to other plants that were bred for flowering, because just keep in mind, anthuriums were not bred to make flowers. They were bred to be leafy.

Kerry Nolan: Thanks for your call. Ron in Montclair, you're on the air. Ron.

Ron: Hi. I planted some calendula flowers in three-inch pot. I put about five in each pot, and they sprouted within a week, but they're about three inches long. Really leggy. I want to know if I can separate them and repot them and bury the stems so they won't be so leggy.

Chris Satch: The legginess is because you're probably not giving it enough light. What I would do is I would increase the light that you're giving it, giving them, and then you can bury them a little deeper than you would normally if that's the case. If they were my plants, I would bury them at the normal depth that you have buried them at. I would just expose the plant, but it's probably going to floop on the surface, just floop over, but make sure it's exposed to light. It's probably white. Are they white, or are they very pale-looking?

Ron: Nice green.

Chris Satch: They're a nice green. Okay. Then, yes, I would give them more light, and then if they are a little leggy, you can bury them a little deeper to help support them because once they get used to being outdoors, they should be able to hold themselves upright.

Kerry Nolan: Okay. Thank you so much for your call. We have a caller and someone on Twitter who said, do you have any tips on moving my plants outside again now that the weather is beginning to warm up plants that you may have brought in tender things that have overwintered at home inside?

Chris Satch: Yes, absolutely. The process for bringing plants from indoors to outdoors is relatively the same no matter what it is. You have about two weeks of hardening off the plant, and then you can place the plant wherever you like in the yard. I'll use succulents as an example because a lot of folks, my mother especially, she brings her cacti from indoors to outdoors. What she'll do is she'll take them.

Like I mentioned at the very beginning of the show, always, always, always pay attention to the nighttime lows. If you're taking indoor tropical plants outdoors, even during the acclimation period, the nighttime low should be no lower than 50 degrees. The cutoff is 50 degrees. If it even dips down to 49, don't bring them out.

Leave them out there in a secluded shaded spot. You want to do full shade and you want to do low wind. Wherever they're protected from the wind and wherever they're protected from the sun, leave them there for about a week, a week and a half. Then you can transition them into an area that has a little more wind and a little more sunlight maybe part sun, a couple of hours of direct sun. Then depending on what kind of plant they are, you can then move them to wherever they're supposed to be. If it's a succulent, you would move it to full sun. Certain tropical plants, full sun, other tropical plants would stay in the shade all year.

Kerry Nolan: Thanks a lot. Plant Doctor Chris, you recently created your own plant service, which is NYC Plant Help. What services do you provide?

Chris Satch: Well, I'm glad you asked. [laughs] What I do or what we do at NYC Plant Help, which our website is nycplantdoctor.com, we do house calls for sick and dying plants. We do almost everything. We do house calls for sick and dying plants where we walk you through how to heal your plant. We walk you through what to do with your plant. We offer also repotting services. If you have a plant that needs to be repotted, we do that for you as well.

We treat plants for pests. I've gotten many, many calls for treating fiddly figs for spider mites. We treat them for that. We treat them for foliar fungi, we diagnose them. A lot of times, I'll get calls from frantic plant parents. They'll say, "Oh no, my leaves are turning yellow or there's these spots all over their leaves," and I'll diagnose and I'll help them.

We also offer private plant classes. I've gotten a few inquiries of people just wanting to learn the secrets of how to grow things better, and we help with that. We also direct people to our local New York City Plant Club, such as the New York Gesneriad Society and the Manhattan Orchid Society, which meets on 13th Street every second Wednesday of the month.

If you're into plants in general and you love flowering plants, especially the Manhattan Orchid Society is a really great group to join. Lots of just plant people nerding out about plants. That's another really great place. I'm there too, so you can catch me in person. We do a little bit of everything. We also do terrace design. We do terrace consultations. We do indoor consultations, outdoor consultations for just about anything. If you have a plant issue, we can help you.

Kerry Nolan: Give us the website address again.

Chris Satch: That is nycplantdoctor.com.

Kerry Nolan: Chris Satch is Plant Doctor Chris, he's a professor at the New York Botanical Gardens, and he has his own plant consultancy business, NYC Plant Help. We are so happy that you came by. Happy spring.

Chris Satch: Happy spring. So great to be here.

Kerry Nolan: It's about time. [laughs]

Chris Satch: Yes, after this winter. [laughs]

 

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