Episode Four: Plants for Winter interest

Learn about Plants for Winter Interest in this episode of Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley,Eli Joseph-Hunter, proprietor of the Greene Bee Greenhouse, Ltd., is the featured guest on this podcast who eloquently describes the value of native plants, as well as the decorative value of trees and shrubs in the landscape. Then stay tuned for the first segment of Good Plant/Bad Plant, where Tim Kennelty talks about Oak trees and Japanese Knotweed. This episode concludes with a discussion about the science associated with planting by the phases of the moon with Devon Russ in Hits and Myths.

Hosts: Tim Kennelty and Jean Thomas

Interview Guests: Eli Joseph-Hunter

Photo by: Tim Kennelty

Resources

Plants for Winter Interest: greenebeegreenehouse.com

Good Plant/Bad Plant (Tim Kennelty):

Oaks: Course Walk: Oaks;NC State Extension: Oaks; Illinois Wild Flowers: Northern Red Oak

Japanese Knotweed: NYIS: Japanese Knotweed; Penn State Extension: Japanese Knotweed; NRCS: Japanese Knotweed

Hits and Myths (Devon Russ): Gardening by the Moon: How to Plant by the Moon's Phase | The Old Farmer's Almanac ; Does Planting by the Moon Work? - Garden Myths ; Debunking “Moon Phase Gardening” | ALEX CALAMIA

Transcript

Welcome to Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley. Our team's goal is to present science-based information about gardening and all things nature in New York's Hudson Valley. Hosts, Jean and Tim, along with team members, Teresa and Linda, are Master Gardener volunteers for New York's Columbia and Greene counties. So if you're interested in gardening, or nature, or nuggets of information about what's happening outside your door, settle in. Enjoy the conversation. Whatever the season, we have something to say.

Tim: Hi, and welcome back! I'm your host, Tim Kennelty.

Jean: And I'm Jean Thomas,

Tim: Wow! Jean, it's really getting to be spring, I think. Yeah?

Jean: It's wonderful. I saw some blue birds outside waiting in line at the bird feeders this morning.

Tim: This is the time of year I like to go out when there's still snow on the ground, and the trees are bare, and kind of look at the structure of the garden. I usually decide I'm going to expand gardens but also it's a great time to look at it, kind of the architecture of the garden. Do you do that?

Jean: Oh, absolutely. I have one hedgerow near a swampy section where I watch the birds collect every morning to soak up the sunrays.

Tim: Yeah, the garden looks totally different in winter. And that's one of our topics for today. It's Plants with Winter Interest. And we're mostly talking about trees and shrubs: woody plants with winter interest.

Jean: And we're going to be talking to Eli Joseph-Hunter, who is the proprietor of Greene Bee, Greenhouse Ltd. in Cornwallville.

Tim: Right. Eli is incredibly knowledgeable and thoughtful about plants, and how to incorporate plants into your landscape. He's going to talk today about plants that really look interesting and provide winter interest in the garden.

Jean: And he has a focus on, I know this is important to you, native plants.

Tim: Yeah, he's going to talk a little bit about that as well. He's just really a very knowledgeable person. And I think he's somebody who is kind of unusual in the garden industry, because he consults with you about what you might want to think about in your landscape to make it beautiful.

Jean: And I've been to his nursery, and he has got this phenomenal hydrangea collection.

Tim: Yeah, it's amazing. And what else is on today's episode, Jean?

Jean: Well, we're talking about one of your favorite topics, which is good plant versus bad plant.

Tim: Yeah, yeah, that's, I mean, that's what I'm calling it. It's really about... The good plant is the native plant, usually a native that's really supportive of wildlife. So it might be a host plant to a butterfly. It might be a nectar plant. It might be what we're talking about today, oaks, which are just amazing plants in terms of their support of wildlife. And then the horrible, evil, bad plant, which is generally going to be some kind of invasive plant that is really detrimental to the environment.

Jean: And those are the ones that are so pretty and seductive a lot of times. Aren't they?

Tim: You like the bad boys, don't you Jean?

Jean: Oh, yeah, kinda,

Tim: Well, there's a lot of times that a plant that was brought here as an ornamental and it has really escaped and done a lot of environmental damage. So, just to get people understanding and knowledgeable about what's good and what's bad.

Jean: Well, an interesting segue from there, Devon Russ is going to be talking to us about the mythology of moon phase planting.

Tim: Yeah, she has a new feature called Hits and Myths.

Jean: And do you Tim, when you plant your seeds go by the phases of the moon.

Tim: I have never done that, I have to say so that's gonna be a really interesting topic to hear about.

Jean: Devon discusses why it's maybe not quite as practical as one might think.

Tim: Okay, well, I can't wait to hear that.

Jean: I think we should listen in.

Jean: Time to do that.

Tim: Welcome back to Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley. Today we're talking with Eli Joseph-Hunter, owner of Greene Bee Greenhouse Ltd. in Cornwallville, New York, in Greene County. Our topic is Plants for Winter Interest. Eli's nursery is an uncertified organic nursery, specializing in growing vegetables, seedlings, perennials, and trees and shrubs.

Teresa: Welcome, Eli. I'd love for everyone to know a little bit more about your business. I know your partner. Briana Davis is a company vegetable specialist on the veggie crops you produce. And we'll be having a conversation with her in the near future about starting plants from seeds. We're looking forward to that. But right now, I understand you're the tree and shrub expert. And I'm sure you share most of the labor that never ends in a family business. Could you start with the term 'uncertified organic'? What does that mean?

Eli: Sure. First of all, thanks for having me. In a nutshell, it means that Briana and I avoid any paperwork, we don't have to do. Any paperwork that can be put off, will be put off. To be certified, you need to fill out the papers, apply, pay fees, be inspected, keep logs of all of your source material, and we find that, because it's primarily just the two of us running the business, that since we're using organic growing practices, we can articulate that to our clients personally and explain which things, at our nursery, were grown by us and therefore are organic and which things were conventional and are now being treated organically. So we just have skipped that step. To grow organically equals means to use all organic soils, there's organic fertilizers when necessary, organic insecticides, fungicides, other products like that. And so we get our soil from McEnroe over Millerton and they're certified. And when we do get conventional plants, once things are potted up, they're back in our McEnroe soil.

Tim: Okay, great. I was lucky enough to be at your nursery this year. You've had amazing inventory, especially of trees and shrubs that we walked through, and we share an interest in native trees and shrubs. We talked a lot about that when I was there. Can you tell us a little bit about why you sowed natives? And if there's a big demand right now, and a little bit about your interest in natives and natives in the nursery?

Eli: Sure, yeah, I mean, native plants are very important and there is a growing demand and awareness of their importance. We do also carry well-behaved introductions, 'benign exotics' a colleague of mine coined, but native plants are vital for supporting our ecosystem. When you think about the interconnectivity of all the living things in nature, many insects and birds and other species have very specific dietary needs, and have evolved to be in this place. Now that's at odds with our built environment, whittling down a habitat and ecological diversity. So when we plant native plants, we are providing the necessary forage and habitat for all these individuals who depend on the plants and then depend on one another. And we of course, depend on them. So that is one vital reason why natives are important. Of course, aesthetically, they're important as well. They have a natural harmony in our landscape, they can provide some beautiful, subtle notes in a design landscape that I think are necessary to subdue and offset some of the real showstoppers that we're all drawn to and like, when we're planting ornamental gardens, especially. So those are two off-the-cuff reasons why indigenous plants are vital, I think.

Tim: So that's really interesting. I really like the way you describe that, that they have their subtle effects in the environment. To other questions for you, Eli, a lot of people have different definitions of native. What do you consider a native plant in your nursery? Is it a native of the Northeast or a native of Greene County? And then tell me your favorite native tree or shrub? I'm really interested in hearing that as well.

Eli: Yeah, that's a good question. Native can be a moving target to where and when. I mean, some people would be saying something indigenous to the place before we got here. And some people would use a more expansive definition, including native plants with a wider geographical range. You know, because we don't restrict ourselves even to just native plants, we do have many favorites. And we'll get into this when we talk about plants with winter interest. There's a lot of introduced species that are, like I said before, but well behaved and necessary, or at least certainly welcomed in the landscape. So the native plants that we carry, and consider native, we kind of allow for a bigger geographical range. Bald Cypress, whose native range is from the southern part of New York over to Florida. Right?And sometimes, things may have more prevalence like OakLeaf hydrangea south of us, but will thrive here. So we would still call that a native plant. However, we appreciate when people feel using a narrower definition. A couple seasons ago, we did a very interesting project for the Mountaintop Arboretum, where we were working with their director Mark Wolf, and a landscape architect Jamie Purinton, to create these really incredible rain gardens around their new visitor center. And it's an entirely native palette that is native to the mountain top itself. And so that was a very narrow range and it created a beautiful landscape that has a wild quality but composed wild quality. As far as my favorite species of native tree, I am more of a glutton than a gourmand. And I have a hard time picking any favorite, especially when you consider the the arc of a plant's merits throughout the changing seasons. So my favorite in the spring might be different than my favorite in the winter.

Teresa: Well, I have to say I'm in love with your hydrangea collection. I hear from a little bird, and all right, it's our bee expert, Linda, that your long term goal is to create an arboretum. How do you manage to keep the deer from devouring everything you grow? Cornwallville isn't exactly urban. And the deer population easily exceeds the human population there.

Eli: Controlling deer pressure is a major issue with any cultivating that we all do. We are fortunate in that we invested many years ago in a solid deer fence around five acres of our property. So we have, you know, in the area where the business is and where our collections are, primarily, is all fenced. And it's an eight foot tall woven wire fence with some manual gates to be opened and closed. You can control deer, of course, with regular spraying or making barricades around individual plantings, but there's a huge liberty to having a large area enclosed. So that is how we are able to grow what we grow unfettered here.

Tim: So of course, we're deeply into the interview. And we haven't even gotten to the topic that we're supposed to be talking about, which is plants of winter interest. When somebody comes into your nursery, and they say, I'd really love to see something that stands out in the winter landscape, what do you usually show them? What do you tell them? Do you have plants that you are kind of have as go-to plants for winter interest?

Eli: Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's a couple of different important pieces to help guide someone into making those choices. On the one hand, I need to understand the space in which they're working. How much of it is? What the culture is like? to give them good suggestions. And then, because spring and fall transitions are so dramatic and happen so rapidly, people, I think, often think of winter as sort of static, and it's not really. It is a slower transition. But things are changing from the very beginning of winter to the very end of winter. There is a fluidity to it. So I might plumb them for which parts of the season they're most interested in highlighting if space is limited, or if space is not limited, I'll encourage, just like we do during the growing season, a succession of plant choices that will really highlight those transitions. For example, the transition from fall into winter when plants with persistent berries will still have a strong presence in the landscape. Something like tea viburnum, viburnum setigerum, or of course, Winterberry, the ilex verticillata, one of our natives, those fruits won't last till March, but they will last for a good portion of the winter. And then, at the tail end of winter, of course, things like witch hazel, especially the hamamelis vernalis, or the introduced species, the hybrids, like the intermedia, is with flower sometimes on a warm March day, when there's still snow on the ground will pick up that end of the season. And then for the dead of winter when things are really slow, and it's more of a diminishing effect. As things lose their persistent leaves or seed pods, I often really want people to think about the bark of trees and shrubs. You know, we spend such a long time looking at bare stems in our deciduous landscape. So there's a huge number of plants with incredible bark characteristics.

Teresa: It looks like you play a form of botanical 20 questions. So let's look at some specifics. Let's pretend I have a garden in a nice sunny place with good soil and plenty of water and an eight foot fence all around to keep the deer out. And let's say I'm bored with my big lawn, and I spent a lot of time in my solarium in the winter looking at the view, what can I plant to give more color in the winter, but still be nice the rest of the year? Tell me your favorites and why?

Eli: Sure. So that's like a nice culture you've described with lots of possibilities. You know many plants will grow well in full sun and part shade with different characteristics in each. So I guess, based on what you've just described, I'm assuming that you've got good soil tilth. So I'll ask you, what is your soil like? Do you have good drainage? or is it heavy? Do you know the quality of your soil?

Teresa: it's well drained.

Eli: Okay, so this is like kind of an ideal gardening context where the real challenge is going to be whittling down the myriad of choices, I think. You said you'd like to preserve your views, so I might frame the view with some, some smallish trees that have the bark characteristics I was alluding to earlier and then start layering from that with a shrub layer of things that will cover a wide range of season for you. So for favorite trees of mine, for bark interest and full sun, would be stewartia pseudocamellia, which is a incredible sort of exfoliating, smooth, tactile bark, reminiscent maybe of sycamore but with a more dynamic color transitions. So there's this beautiful bark in the winter but the tree, of course, has four seasons of interest. When leaves emerge in the spring, they're sort of covered with this very silver fuzz or pubescence that is really, really showy. And then they have a long-lasting summer flower, a white flower that is shaped like a Camelia. Hence, its specific epithet. They get a really beautiful, fleshy, seed pod after the flower that then turns into a woody capsule that persists throughout the winter, really vivid, sort of red to maroon fall colors. And then again, back to that bark, which is showy year round, but is really highlighted in the winter. That's high on my list of wonderful trees. Paperbark maple, Acer Griseum, would be another excellent winter interest tree with very, very smooth, cinnamon-colored bark that exfoliates and when the trunk expands in the growing season, it'll sort of split and curl and reveal this bright green underlayer that then is exposed to the sun and transitions back to the cinnamon color. And so it's got these beautiful curls of thin paper like bark, hence its common name. Its leaves are very, very pink in the spring when they emerge and very red in the fall. That's another favorite tree with winter interest. And moving into shrubs. I would mention two different genuses, which are sort of what I consider stalwart garden genuses, which encapsulate native and introduced species, and have a very important place in the landscape year round, including the winter which would, of course be viburnum and hydrangea. There are many viburnum species that have persistent leaves halfway through the winter, there's things like Viburnum Rhytidophyllum, the leatherleaf viburnum, and all of its hybrids. It's crossed with lantanoides and utile, and there's just a tremendous number of these viburnums with persistent leaves. I mentioned earlier the T viburnum, which has long lasting fruits, these beautiful heavy clusters of red fruits that many different species of birds enjoy. And there are the early spring flowering viburnums, which have really really showy flower bugs throughout the winter because they're ready to open right away and April and May. And then hydrangea, as many people know, of course, lots of different types of hydrangeas, I think the macrophylla, the blue flower and pink flowered ones are the most present on people's minds. But there's native species, like hydrangea arborescens, with persistent flowers that dry and last all through the winter. And then of course, hydrangea paniculata, which I think are one of the most important winter hydrangeas because they get large, and the flowers stay really well all through the winter. And so there's these beautiful rich tones of tan and brown and and they come in sterile and fertile forms, which gives you both dense sort of conical florets and more open ones. Depending on which selection you choose, you could have these three to four foot mounds all the way up to 10 to 15 foot specimens. And so they really have a place in any size landscape. And that's just their winter interest. Of course, their summer flowers are fragrant and beautiful. They transition from white to pink. The foliage is often clear yellow in the fall, and even some selections have these beautiful apricot colored fall notes.

Tim: So this is why you couldn't get rid of me at the nursery, Eli. I love when you talk about the plants and how descriptive you are and how basically you're doing a consultation as opposed to the customer just coming in and trying to figure out what they want. I think that's amazing. And everybody does have really different conditions. I mean, Teresa described probably the perfect condition. I probably have just the opposite in my yard, you know, clay soil, deer rabbits. What's your advice for going into a nursery in the spring? And how do you assess stock to see that it's healthy, and it's a plant that you want to buy?

Eli: Yeah, you know, there's a number of different ways to assess plant health. There's two separate things going on there. Right? The size of a plant and how mature it is, is one piece and that often boils down to your budget and your ambition. A three inch caliper, balled and burlapped, field grown tree is upwards of 1000 pounds and difficult to handle or can be that heavy and has a different method of planting than a two gallon sapling that is maybe only four feet tall with a half an inch trunk caliper. Now both trees, given time, will be incredible in your landscape, but they involve a lot of different handling which we can get into. But that's one question.How ambitious are you? How much do you have to spend? How much of a hurry are you in? People will often cynically talk about their life expectancies. On trees you hear a lot about mortality and say "Oh, I'll never make it to see this grow", to which I often say, "Well, don't be a pessimist. You plant a tree with hopes for the future. Eat well". But as far as assessing plant health, there are some important things you can do. First of all, making sure you're in the nursery looks well cared for if most of the plants look healthy. That's a good starting point. Or if you're in a place where things have clearly been let to dry out and have fried and you're seeing a lot of visible damage on foliage, you may be in an environment where the plants have been more stressed than another the time of year. Of course, you know, if things are stressed out in the spring, that's a red flag. If things are stressed out in late summer, that's something we all struggle with in nurseries. But if you're looking at container plants, you can inspect it for its shape, make sure that there's not a lot of crossed limbs or congested framework, you can pull a plant out of its pot partway to make sure it's not overly root bound. If you pull it out, and you can't see soil, all you see is a mat of white roots, that is a plant that could still thrive. But it's more work to loosen the roots when you plant it and or it should have been potted up a little while ago and it could be stressed. Checking trees for their proper depth is vital. A lot of people don't know that they shouldn't do that and how to do that. And it's amazing how frequently trees have too much soil around their trunks when you get them from any nursery, ours included.With field grown trees, the spades will often, when they're dug, will inadvertently hill soil up around the trunk. And container trees, as they're potted up incrementally, can get put in too deeply. So when you plant the tree, you want to carefully excavate the soil away from the trunk until you find those first lateral or horizontal roots. Those are the stabilizing roots or the the transport roots. And those should be just above grade when a tree is planted. So if you're at a nursery and you see a tree that looks like a telephone pole coming out of the ground, you know it's too deep. And you may want to dig around. If it's, you know, half an inch or an inch under the soil, and you can see that it doesn't have encircling, constricting roots, you're good to go. If you're digging down and you find that it's four inches in and you still haven't found those transport routes, you may want to pick a different one.

Teresa: Well, this is really helpful. But realistically, you really can't go out and buy anything this time of year. And that could be frustrating. So what does your average dissatisfied homeowner do while waiting for planting time?

Eli: Briana and I just love winter because we work so hard throughout the season, it's an opportunity to go dormant and reflect and have that time to percolate on your landscape. So I think this is a wonderful opportunity for people to really observe the bones of their landscape to really look at the topography and the framework of what's there and see it in this particular light. And I think, important advice for anybody, is to read more and to do a little research. There's such a wealth of information at our fingertips in this day and age that you have the time and opportunity to really take a deep dive in a subject that might interest you. And if you have a specific facet of gardening that appeals to you, you can really explore it and use that knowledge when spring does arrive to make more informed choices and be met with easier success.

Tim: Thanks, Eli, for joining us and sharing your expertise. This has been really a great introduction to a fine local grower and nursery and you're obviously an innovator in your field. We have links available on our webpage at ccecolumbiagreene.org with more information about Greene Bee Greenhouse Ltd. and the other subjects of our conversation today. Thanks for joining us

You're listening to Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley. Stay tuned for Good Plant/Bad Plant.

Tim: Welcome to Good Plant/Bad Plant, a recurring segment of this podcast that will focus on two plants per episode: one that supports pollinators, birds and other animals and one plant, or plant group, that is an invasive or noxious weed. Thus, Good Plant/Bad Plant. I'm your host, Master Gardener Volunteer, Tim Kennelty.

Tim: So with our premiere episode, I'd be remiss in not talking about what Doug Tallamy, that native plant guru, calls the most powerful plant, the mighty oak. And when I say oak, I'm talking about the genus quercus. And I'm really referring to oaks that are native to our area, like white oaks, red oaks, swamp white oaks, Scarlet oaks, and a few others. Oaks can grow to about 100 feet and can live from 200 to 400 years. Red oaks and scarlet oaks and pin oaks have a fibrous root system and they're fairly easy to transplant, but white oaks have a taproot, and they're best planted with saplings. Oaks are generally relatively easy to grow and thrive in well drained acidic soil in full sun. They're really beautiful, majestic trees, often with attractive fall foliage in shades of red, gold, and orange. So why are oak so important to the ecosystem? First and foremost there what Tallamy calls keystone species, one that defines an entire ecosystem, particularly in supporting insects that are subsequently consumed. by birds. Oaks support more than 500 different caterpillar species, which of course turn into butterflies and moths, but are critical food for young birds as well. They're also great at sequestering carbon and pumping that carbon back into the soil. And they produce acorns that are eaten by squirrels, deer, turkey and other birds. I could go on and on about oaks, but suffice it to say, if you're going to plant one tree in your yard, and you really want to support wildlife, you really can't go wrong by planting an oak.

Tim: So now to our bad plant. Boo! Hiss! As the oak may be the king of beneficial plants, I'm counting the queen of invasives, Japanese knotweed. Knotweed is a member of the buckwheat family. And like many invasive plants, it was introduced as an exotic ornamental from Asia in the 1800s. And by the 1930s, it was already recognized as a problematic pest. It can grow from three to 15 feet and has bamboo like stems. It's even referred to commonly as Japanese bamboo. Knotweed can thrive in disturbed areas like drainage ditches, wetlands, streams, woodland edges, and along roadsides. It spreads rapidly through underground rhizomes. In fact, a single piece of rhizome that breaks off can easily create a new plant and add to the spread. Knotweed can be devastating to the environment, as it forms dense thickets that crowd out and shade native vegetation. Large stands, or monocultures, of knotweed reduce species diversity adversely impacting ecosystems and wildlife. A dense stand of knotweed can also contribute to soil erosion. As for identification during spring, reddish purple shoots appear from a network of spreading rhizomes and develop into asparagus-like spears that grow very rapidly. By early summer, the stems are hollow with purple speckles, and the leaves alternate along each stem with a zigzag pattern. In late summer, distinctive creamy colored spike-like flowers emerge that are quite beautiful, actually. Knotweed control and control, not elimination, is what we're going for as a practical objective with this invasive species, can be a multi-year project focusing on reducing the rhizome network. Management includes repeated cutting, and most likely will require herbicide application. For more information on identification and control of knotweed, I'm going to include some really good trusted links and sources. It's always better to know your foe. So that's a wrap for today's edition of Good Plant/Bad Plant. And remember, as gardeners, we really can make a difference. If you want to support birds, butterflies and bees, include native plants in your garden and watch out for those invasives.

You're listening to Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley. Stay tuned for Hits and Myths.

Devon: Hello, this is Devon Russ. I'm a Master Gardener Volunteer from Columbia and Greene Counties. And I'm here with the first episode of Hits and Myths.

Devon: Would your garden be more productive if you plant by the phases of the moon? Lots of people think plant growth, especially seed sprouting, is affected by the phase of the moon. A simple version of that idea is described in the Farmers Almanac like this:Plant crops grown for their flowers or fruit, are best planted during the waxing half of the moon cycle, when the moon gets brighter each night, from the New Moon to the full moon. On the other hand, you should plant crops grown for their roots and tubers during the waning half of the moon cycle, when there's less moonlight each night from the full moon to the next new moon.

Devon: It's fine to observe this as a tradition. But there's no reason to think that seeds behave differently in different moon phases. Why? First, there is no mechanism for the moon phase to affect seeds. Books and calendars, that promote moon phase planting, make vague statements about how the phases of the moon affect tides and therefore, perhaps, also affect water in the soil. But tides happen only in the ocean. The tidal effect cannot be detected in smaller water bodies like lakes or ponds. Water droplets in the soil are just way too small to show tidal pull. Also, ocean high and low tides happen twice each day, as spots on the Earth spin through the most or least intense pull of gravity from the sun and moon. Seeds take several days to germinate and some will be in the soil for many of these tides cycles, regardless of the moon phase at planting. And it's worth remembering that even if moon phase had a tiny effect on soil moisture, that effect would be overwhelmed by rain, or by a watering can.

Devon: Second, we shouldn't expect seeds to behave differently based on how we want to use the crop. Suppose you're planting carrots and dill. They're in the same family and their seeds are similar. They perform best with similar treatment in terms of temperature, moisture, planting depth, etc. But moon phase planting schemes would suggest they need opposite treatment. Plant the carrots, which we want for their roots, during the waning phase and the dill, which we want for its leaves, during the waxing phase. It makes much more sense to think that plants, that have so much in common, would do fine planted on the same day. A third idea, to keep in mind, is that so many things have an obvious and strong effect on seed sprouting: soil temperature, soil texture, air temperature, watering, amount of light, the age of the seeds, pests and diseases. You must pay attention to all of these factors if you want your seeds to sprout well. Moon signs may be worth considering as a cultural tradition, but only at the end of the list. Thank you for listening. This is Devon Russ with Hits and Myths.

That concludes another episode of Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley. We would like to thank Sandra Linnell and Devin Connolly from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene counties for production support. And a special thank you to our listeners for joining us on this episode of Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley. You can find links to any of the topics mentioned in this episode at our website at ccecolumbiagreene.org. Comments and suggestions for future topics may be directed to us at colgremg@cornell.edu or on the CCE Master Gardener Volunteers of Columbia and Greene Counties' Facebook page. For more information about Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene Counties, visit our website at ccecolumbiagreene.org or visit us in Hudson or in Acra. Cornell Cooperative Extension provides equal programming and employment opportunities

Last updated May 3, 2023