441-How to Keep Houseplants and Overwintered Pots Thriving — The Science Behind It

Hi everybody, this is Joe Lample, the Joe behind Joe Gardener, and welcome to the Joe Gardener Show. Today's episode is on cool season plant care. That's going to include plants that are not winter hardy that live outside for the rest of the year, but we need to bring them in to keep them safe and protected during the coldest months where if we didn't, they wouldn't survive outside. And we'll also be talking about house plants too that live full-time indoors, but as the days get shorter and temperatures change and the angle of the sun changes, they respond to that. So there are a few things that we need to change up and how we care for them and how we respond personally as well. So you'll learn about that in this conversation. So this is not going to be your basic house plant care podcast where you're just checking off the steps that you've probably heard multiple times. The asset will include some of those, but I want to try to go deeper wherever I can to give you the science behind how the plants are responding to the change in environmental conditions and why we need to pay attention to that and then change how we take care of those plants as well during that same time period. So it's a big shift for the plants and for us and how we tend to naturally want to care for those plants when we get a break during the colder months too. So we'll talk about that. And I also want to thank Amy Prentice once again for recommending this episode. We have a good editorial calendar for our podcast schedule that goes out for months in advance on what we're going to be recording and who we're going to be talking to and the topics of course, but sometimes we make adjustments on the fly and adjust where a podcast episode is going to be. And this one, we just tweaked it, but we talked about how this would be a good one to do in a slightly different way. So that's what you're in store for this time. And I'll say that because of the science that I wanted to add in here, we'll qualify this one for a geek alert as well. So I can give you some information that you'll hear here that generally you don't hear in a houseplant care podcast episode. And hopefully you will appreciate that and it will sync nicely with what you're used to from time to time on these episodes that makes us a little bit different. And be sure to stick around to the end on this one because I have a new announcement for a great webinar coming up on November 19th with Nancy Lawson and it's going to be a good one. Let's go ahead and get started. And as we do, thanks to our sponsor for today's episode, the ultimate gardening sheath. Every gardener has that one thing they wish existed to make their work easier. For me, it was a way to carry my three most important tools, my pruners, soil knife and micro snips comfortably and securely right by my side. I searched for years, but it simply didn't exist. So I co-created it. That's how the ultimate gardening sheath was born. It's handcrafted in North Carolina from durable leather and built to last. It hugs your side, moves with you and keeps your tools safe and always within reach. No more lost pruners, no more juggling and no more unnecessary trips back to the shed. This sheath has truly transformed the way that I work in my garden and I think it will do the same for you. To learn more or to order your own, head over to joegardener.com slash UGS. That's joegardener.com slash UGS. Let me go ahead and set the scene first of all for why fall is kind of a stressful transition time for plants that we're bringing in. Not so much for the ones that are living inside, although they too respond. They're aware of the changing environment too, but especially for the ones that we're bringing in. So a major change obviously is the environment. The physiological shift and that is the plants are sensing the shorter days and the cooler temperatures and even the angle of the sun. They're picking up on the difference in the light quality. So there's a lot of things going on that the plant is aware of and that is because of a pigment found in the plant cells called phytochrome, which is amazing that it does a lot of things for the plant. But essentially it's like a biological calendar or a dimmer switch that's informing the plant of what's happening and taking control over how the plant responds because of the shift in the environmental changes. And I think the benefit of understanding what phytochrome is and does in a plant helps us understand the physiological changes that are taking place in the plants and that lets us know that the care that we provide should shift also. So instead of more water and food, what they really need is stability and consistent temperatures and adequate light and just patience until we get closer to active growth period again next spring and all should be well if we just kind of adhere to that and enjoy the break along with the plants. So when the metabolism is triggered to slow down, that influences the growth pattern and the leaf expansion and the flowering and the dormancy and accordingly how we respond. But let's talk about what we do with those plants that have been outside and these are the ones that we need to get inside. And I would start this part of the conversation with my personal story with this and it wasn't bringing the plants into my house, but it was bringing plants into the greenhouse. But basically the same cause and effect. I brought some roses into my greenhouse in the fall and there they were, you know, happy, growing in a warmer environment than outside. And by this time where I noticed, I didn't notice Toby, my farm manager noticed that we had aphids all over my roses. And this was after I'd already started my seedlings for my spring plant sale and my peppers and my tomatoes. I had 3,000 plants seedlings right next to the roses. And why wouldn't the aphids want to have a party on all of those too? And that was a big scare for me. And we had to deal with it. We had no choice, but we had to deal with it. So the first thing we did was what I would recommend anybody do and that is to take the plants out if you can and really blast them with water and do everything you can to try to get everything off. And usually that works with aphids, but in our case it didn't work completely and they were still on and they were reproduced so quickly that they were back in force in just a few days. And so we had to go to Lady Beetles and I had to buy some of them, which I'm not a fan of for other reasons. I mean, I love Lady Beetles, but just buying them in is, it's not the best scenario. You want to go with natives when you can, but this was an instance where they are just not readily available outside. So I had to bring them in. But anyway, that said, we turned them loose a few thousand of those and they did a good job, but they didn't get everybody. And eventually we had to go with neem oil and that did it, but it took a while and that could have been avoided, but it would have been by not having the roses in the same shared environment as my cash crops to avoid the situation completely. But all that to say for you bringing in plants into your house, yes, take precautions because you don't want the aphids and the white flies and anything else flying around inside your house. People aren't going to be happy about that. So what you can do is what I've already said is blast them off with water, but what you could do that's even better than that, if possible, is you could submerge your plants right before you're bringing them in. Go ahead and get a large container of water and put your plants in the water and sink them down. Or rather than sinking the whole plant with the container into the water, you could invert them and just put the above soil part, submerge them into the water while you're still holding the container, suspending that above the water level. And then you can agitate the plant so that it kind of shakes everything loose while you're still holding it. And then once you feel like you've given it enough time, you can lift that out and that way your root ball is still dry. And that could be another way that you have a little more control over manipulating that plant to kind of shake things loose. As we get into the colder months, there are insects naturally that are using the plants to overwinter. They're burrowing down into the base of the plants, right next to the roots or down into the soil. And on the leaf surfaces or in the leaf nodes, so a good blast of water or submersion would be good. Or you can take them into a garage or just maybe a place that's a little bit protected and do an insecticidal soap spray or a neem oil spray. Those are both organic controls. They're fairly benign and maybe something that you could do to ensure before you bring them in. But that's some options for you if you wanted to avoid the hitchhikers. But definitely inspect them. The other thing though is to maybe provide a transitional time before you bring them into their final destination where they'll be for several months is that quarantine room. Maybe it's a garage, maybe it's a room in your basement or just someplace where you can observe them for a week or so before they come inside to the other part. And that gives you a chance to buy yourself some more time in case you need to do anything else to satisfy the fact that you don't have any pest hitchhiking into the best of your observation. So that helps a lot. But it also is something to think about as far as avoiding shock because just like we harden off ceilings that go from inside to outside that we've started under artificial light and temperatures. When we're ready for them to go outside, we don't just set them outside all at once. We ease them into that outdoor environment because outside the sunlight is exponentially stronger and if we were to put them out there all at once and leave them there, that could be a death sentence for the plants. It's just too intense. Well, the reverse of that is taking plants that have lived outside and bringing them into a much different environment. If we did that all at once, that might be a little too harsh depending on the timing of when you do that. But no matter what, the light's going to be significantly different. But if you have a way of kind of easing them in and it's just your best judgment on how you think to do that won't hurt and it probably will help the plants settle in more quickly rather than just getting shocked and maybe dropping all their leaves and just putting them under a stressful situation that potentially is avoidable. So give that some consideration. The other thing though, along the lines of as we get them ready to come inside and it probably is in the relation to the pest part of this or improving the soil. Take your plants and remove them from the pots if you think this is something you want to add to your list to do and inspect the roots and look to see if there's anything that you can notice of overwintering insects because as it gets colder, many insects live the winter in the soil. They go down and they pupate and then they emerge when it gets warm again in the spring. Well you probably won't see that but it may be a good time for you to inspect the roots and make some changes there but you also might want to change out the soil. Maybe you haven't changed the soil out in a while and it needs refreshing. This would really be a good time to do that and if you do that, if there is anything overwintering in the soil that you wouldn't want to bring into the house, you could eliminate that problem too. The reason why you might want to do that is because when you bring those plants inside, if you had anything pupating in the soil, now that we have warmer conditions inside, the eggs may hatch or they may pupate out of that situation and emerge from the soil because they think it's time to do that because it's warmer and they could be tricked into thinking it's spring, not knowing that they got moved inside and that's why it's warmer. Then you get this pest outbreak after the fact inside and I have a special portion of this I want to talk about that and what you can do if that happens but this would be a good way to head that off at the pass and take care of that in advance. Those are some things that you can do before you bring them inside. Light is going to be the most significant consideration for the difference in what's happening outside versus inside and even with our houseplants that have been living inside, they too are picking up on the reduced light quality. The days are getting shorter so the outside light that they're getting is less, the angle of the sun is changing so the light quality overall is not what it was. Outdoor lighting is exponentially greater than indoor lighting and the best thing that we can do if we have a south facing window inside is to group our plants in that situation where they're getting that light which is the best exposure that we can get. Even with modern UV blocking windows, the quality of light plants need to get through the cool season isn't filtered out in any meaningful way. For many houseplants and overwintering container plants, that natural sunlight is often enough to keep them healthy until spring. But not every plant and not every window delivers the same amount of light. If your plants are stretching towards the window or putting on weak new growth or simply stalling out, that's a sign that they may not be getting enough light. And here's a simple rule of thumb if you want a little bit of a geeky way to measure this, I'll give you the numbers here. If you want a pretty good idea of whether or not the light coming through the window is or should be sufficient for most of your plants, here's a simple rule of thumb. Just on a sunny day if you can comfortably read a book by that window without turning on a lamp, you're probably getting around 100 to 300 micromoles of light and that's a scientific measure of how plants respond to a range of light. Technically when I say micromoles, I should say micromoles per square meter per second. And so now you know. And that ratio between 100 and 300 is pretty similar to a lot of the common grow lights that you can buy today, the less expensive ones. That's not a lot of power, but it's enough. And that's really all we're asking for at this point. So that's good for most foliage plants, but plants that love full sun like citrus and peppers may want more. And that's where our supplemental grow light comes in. Adding a full spectrum LED over the group for like 10 to 12 hours a day can make up the difference, especially during the short low light days of winter. And it doesn't have to be complicated or fancy just enough to boost the overall light intensity. We just want a little bit of intermediate light to kind of carry them along. And a grow light would do that. And it doesn't need to be real close to the top of the plants. In fact, if it's an LED light, a modern grow light, that LED light is deceptively strong and it does not need to be right on top of the plant. So set it up maybe two feet, just adjust it as you go to observe to see how the plants respond. But what you're really looking for is just to bathe the plants in a basket of light for that supplement and that should do it. If nothing else, it won't hurt anything. Is it required? No, but it is definitely a nice to have. And if you can do it, I recommend that you do. And here's one more reason to do that. If you'd like it, and this would be a science-based explanation on why this matters, is that photosynthetic efficiency certainly drops as light intensity drops. But it can drop below what's called the compensation point. That's the term. And that's where respiration, the breathing, like humans, plants and humans, anything living, it's breathing all the time. The rate of how it's breathing or the rate of respiration can increase or decrease. And as plants go dormant, certainly it's decreasing. But when the respiration is greater than the photosynthesis, it can create an energy deficiency. And that's where the plant can kind of start to decline even more because it's not getting the energy it needs even to continue respiration at a lower level. So supplemental lighting can just make the difference in providing that gap that can provide enough energy production to maintain even that low level of respiration so there's not an energy deficiency. Watering. Another important consideration and a change to our behavior that we really need to focus on when plants are coming inside is how much water the plant is getting. And I'm sure you know by now, just from what we've already talked about, the watering needs are going to be less. As the plant is slowing down, respiration is slowing down, overall metabolic activity is slowing down, the plant does not need the water that it needs during full growth activity. In full growth activity, the respiration rate is active, the water uptake is active, the transpiration, the release of moisture through the leaves is active. All of that is good, but it's dramatically different. When everything slows down, the plant does not need to take up water through the roots like it did during active growth. But if we continue to water on that schedule that we should get away from during the fall and winter time, don't follow the calendar. So every Sunday we're doing our watering, we can do that and then we can lead to adverse effects where the plants ultimately potentially leading to drowning. But here's where the science really drives this home. In cooler temperatures, we know already that things are slowing down and the stomatal conductivity drops as well. What is that? Transpiration basically is not what it is during active growth. So let me just break that down a little bit. Stomate, the stomatal conductivity, the root word of that, the stomate is the, what is the, basically the equivalent of the mouth part. And I anthropomorphize plants all the time. It's hard not to, but it makes sense. There are little openings on the leaf surface of plants, usually on the underside. And the opening and the closing of that is controlled by what are called guard cells. And the guard cells activate the opening and the closing based on the need of the plant to basically transpire, which is release excess moisture that had been taken up during active growth from the roots. And as it works its way into the roots and up through the plant, it's released as needed through transpiration when the stomates open up. And also the stomates are what takes in carbon dioxide. So when the metabolic activity is slowing down and transpiration is slowing down and the intake of carbon dioxide is slowing down, there's no need for the usual uptake of the water. So again, get off the calendar, no weekly watering or whatever it is for you. Yeah. At the same time, you're going to monitor it and you're going to keep the moisture of the soil slightly damp periodically, but nothing like it was when plants were actively growing. Now with house plants, yeah, they're actively growing. They're not like the ones we're bringing inside that either go totally dormant or semi-dormant. So let's differentiate that. You'll water those more than you will the ones we're bringing in, but you're going to have to be the judge of the difference in what that takes. Certainly the ones that are dormant or semi-dormant barely need any water, but a little bit every so often is good. Overwatering in any case is not good. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. As far as the indoor environment of the plants, temperature wise, they like what we like. On the daytime, 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit is great. Nighttime, 55 to 65 Fahrenheit is great. They're not that picky about that, but where they are picky with temperature is on the extreme side. Especially a blast of hot air blowing on those plants is bad in a couple of ways. It's going to dry out everything. Plants don't like that and they're going to let you know. That's where observation is going to come in and it won't take you long to realize that the plants are not in a good situation. The same thing is true on the other end. Putting them in front of cold flowing air is not good either, but in the wintertime, it's more likely that it's going to be warm air. That's not the ideal situation. Humidity in a normal environment of summertime. Air conditioning provides in a good air conditioning system. It's putting out humidity in the 55 to 60 degree range, I think, for our comfort. That tends to be where it's at. Plants like that too. In the wintertime, with that warmer air, it dries out the humidity. We have reduced levels closer to 30%, which is not usually enough for what plants really want. You'll keep an eye on it to know. This primarily is pertaining to our house plants at this point, but if you needed to add additional humidity, in some systems, you can adjust that at your controller, which would be a great way to do it. If not, you've heard of a few things like misting your plants every day or putting a saucer underneath the pot with a layer of pebbles in it and then watering the container. Then the humidity as it's evaporating is helping with your plants. It does help. It just is not, according to studies that have been done, it's not to the level that we think it's not the be all end all to giving the plants the humidity they need, but it's certainly better than nothing. Don't stop doing it just because it's not as effective as we think it is. It still helps. And it's something that's better than nothing. A humidifier would help, but again, a humidifier tends to just dissipate widely faster than we think, but if you can get it close to the plants and you can have that working every day, that certainly would be a good thing. So do what you can and just pay attention to how your plants are looking. But the one thing to do if you are going to be leaving town, the whole house is going empty and your plants are still there and nobody's coming in to take care of anything, you might want to consider taking all of your plants and grouping them into your bathtub or into your shower area and then provide some standing water in the base of the tub or the shower of a few inches and then setting your plants into that, but not where the soil is drawing up the water because soil will wick up standing water if it has contact with it. What I want you to do is take advantage of the humidity, the evaporation, the damper environment of the air, not constant uptake from the soil because that's watering and we don't want to do that. So maybe you're putting your plants into a bin that's sitting in the tub, but the bottom of your containers isn't in direct contact with the water. It's just the humidity that we're after. So hopefully that makes sense and you'll get a picture of what I'm talking about. So that will help in those extended periods of time where you're out of town. Okay, what about fertilizer feeding your plants during this time of year? You don't need to do it, especially the ones that are in a semi-dormant or dormant stage. You don't need to do that for sure. And even the ones that the house plants are actively growing, they're still slowing down because they recognize it's time to slow down. And plants generally, if they're not metabolizing, they have no need to take up any nutrients. They're not wanting it. They don't need it. And I think the simplest way to compare this is think about hibernating bears. They're voracious eaters while they're up and going, but they are not eating while they're sleeping. And plants don't need to do that either. So you can just back off of that. And if you want to scratch your itch for taking care of your plants, once they show signs of getting back into active growth as you get close to springtime and the day length is increasing, the angle of the sun is getting higher, that's going to drive the plant to kick into some growth mode. And it probably would be a good time to start a light dose of supplemental fertilization, but not until then. Okay, hands-on care. What else should we be doing? If you're thinking about pruning before you bring them in, I wouldn't recommend that. If you've listened to this podcast before, you've probably heard me say growth follows the cut. And if you're making pruning cuts in the fall, you're going to induce growth whenever you make a cut, except when it's fully dormant. And we don't want to induce growth during the fall because as plants are slowing down, we don't want growth to speed up just because we did something to make that happen. We don't want to add to the workload of the plant. What you could do is during the time that they're inside, I would say clean them, take a damp cloth or some paper towels, spray bottle, dust cloth. Dust is going to build up no matter how clean your house is, you're going to get some dust. And those leaf surfaces are great dust collectors. And the longer you let that build up happen, the thicker that barrier is from preventing light, whatever you do, whether it's sunlight or supplemental light, from getting absorbed into the leaf and doing some good, that's going to slow that down. So by cleaning it up every so often, you allow that intake of good light to keep that plant functioning at the right level. And then just observation, if there's anything you see abnormal taking place, observation may lead to the fact that you've got some emerging pests. I talked about this a little bit earlier on, but this is the time where you may have been fine for a few months. And suddenly out of nowhere, you're looking at white flies or fungus gnats showing up and you have no idea how they got there. And I think I told you earlier how that happens is these eggs are emerging or there's hatching taking place because whatever was overwintering in the soil thinks it's now spring time. It's had some time. It's biological clock in the soil has been sufficient enough. And now the temperature of the soil coincides with, hey, there's a green light for me to wake up and get going. So all of a sudden everything starts to show up. Well, what I would recommend that you do is go ahead and grab those plants that they're emerging from, take them out into the garage or into the porch on a warm day and blast them with water again or go ahead and hit them with that insecticidal soap or that neem oil. And depending on what you have, it may take more than one application. So you may need to leave them out in quarantine for a little while or bring them in and back out. You'll know whether or not you need to give them a couple of applications. But something you can do that doesn't require any spraying is the yellow sticky traps. Now this won't be all that attractive inside your house. It still is really effective because the color yellow is a magnet for many insects and most pest insects. They're just drawn to it. And there's a stickiness on the card that once they land on it, they can't get off. Now I'm okay with this inside, but I'm not a fan of this outside because so many insects are drawn to it as well as lizards and frogs and butterflies and moths and even hummingbirds. That's not a good thing. And I'm not a fan for that reason outside. But inside, it's another story or you could use yellow index cards and put Vaseline on it. But the point is that will work and it's a much cleaner way of dealing with your pest outbreak. And the insect you're probably going to see the most of emerging out of nowhere are fungus gnats. This is going to happen usually when the soil is too moist. They need moist soil in order to hatch. And so cut down on the watering and another reason to cut down on the watering and air circulation also helps keep the surface of the soil dry in addition to cutting down on the fungus exposure. So air circulation for that reason too. But that's keeping eye out for fungus gnats especially. But if you have the yellow traps, that would be a good option. But I just talked about really cutting down on the watering. But also I've said a little bit of watering periodically is also good just to maintain some level of moisture slowly but surely. And there are two controls that you can use for insects that emerge in your house plants that require water for application. One is nematodes. There is a strain of nematode, a microscopic worm. It comes in a powder. You can get it at Arbico, Organics. We'll put a link in the show notes for where you can find that. But they'll go down and they'll take out the larvae before they ever emerge. Totally clean, very safe and that's an option. The other one is BTI. BTI is Bacillus Thuringiensis, Isarelliensis. That's the strain of a bacteria that is very safe for humans or pets or anything else. It's just highly targeted and this strain is really targeted to mosquitoes and fungus gnats. It's what you find when you buy mosquito dunks. This is exactly what you're buying. That's the active ingredient in it. But if you take a little bit of the mosquito dunk and you grind it up, mix it with water and water your plants, that is going to go down into the soil and take care of the fungus gnats before they emerge. So that would be a very safe application. Inexpensive, easy to do, does require a little bit of water. So incorporate that with your periodic watering or count that as a periodic watering opportunity. And that would be a justified time to do that. Now before we totally wrap up, I want to give you a short list of recommended house plants that I think are interesting, very easy to care for, drought tolerant, and you would enjoy them in your house. There are lots of lists out there, so there's no shortage of options. But this is my list and it's short and sweet. Now for those of you watching this podcast on our YouTube channel, here's a quick show and tell on this first plant. This is called the snake plant, also known as Mother-in-Law's Tongue, not the friendliest name ever. We won't go into why it's called that. The botanical name is Sanzivaria, but this is one that is the poster child for drought tolerant. I bought this a couple years ago, put it right back on that shelf right there in that spot and forgot about it until about eight months after I bought it. I was doing an episode on house plants and it jogged my memory that I had one of those plants I was talking about, but realized I hadn't watered since I got it, other than watering when I got it. So eight months of no watering. I was sure it was either dead or practically dead. I went back to that spot and looked at it and it looked about like this. It was a little bit willty, but barely. I watered it, it sprung right back into action and here it is. It rarely gets watered. I continue to forget about it. It's back there quietly growing, but it could not be happier and it's beautiful and it's got nice shiny spiky foliage and a great one to have. My grandmother had, these go back for ages and very low light conditions and low water. So go with that is one of them. Pothos is another one that a lot of people use. It's a really easy plant to grow. Interesting piece lily. It's one that's bigger, taller. It's one that will tell you when it's thirsty, it's got beautiful tall leaves on a narrow stem and then the leaf kind of thickens up and gets wider and it puts out a white piece lily in the middle of the plant. It's beautiful, but when it's thirsty, it'll wilt quickly, but not to worry because if you're paying attention using your observational skills, that's a sure sign that it needs water and you water it and it springs back into life and it keeps going. So that's a really low maintenance, easy plant to take care of. Philodendrons, another nice foliar plant with interesting structure, very easy to take care of, not a needy plant and a good size plant too. I would recommend that. And then Hoyas, that's one that's become very popular over the past few years as the explosion of house plant popularity has come into play. And these are all readily available. They're all inexpensive, all different sizes and shapes. So that would be a good starter list and we'll put that into the show notes as well. So I'm going to end it there because I think I've covered the points that I wanted to include for you. What you need to know as well as some of the science behind what's happening and the change in the environment and why we should change accordingly for that. So the plants get a break and we get a break too overall. And that sounds good to me. The show notes for this episode will have related links and you can re-listen to the podcast there as well as get a great custom write up of what you heard today, which you will only find from the show notes on our website. And the way to get there is at JoeGardner.com. Look for the podcast tab and this is episode number 441. Just a reminder, this podcast is available on YouTube as a video where you can listen and watch this time. And for all the solo episodes, I'm in my studio speaking to the camera and recording the episode. And then we're adding pictures and video throughout that are relevant to what I'm talking about in the moment. So if you are a visual learner like I am, the YouTube version of the podcast is the best of both worlds. And you can watch it there from the link in the show notes or just head over to our channel on YouTube, Joe Gardner TV. You can find me during the week on Instagram and Facebook at Joe Gardner and say hi if you find your way onto one or both of those accounts. Now coming up in about three weeks, I have a very exciting webinar announcement for our next event happening on November 19th. If you've ever walked out into your garden and found your favorite plants nibbled to the ground overnight, I can raise my hand to that, you know that sinking feeling. Deer rabbits, groundhogs, they all seem to think that our gardens are there all you can eat buffet, but here's the good news. There is a better way to deal with it. On Wednesday, November 19th at noon Eastern time, I'm teaming up with my friend Nancy Lawson, author of the Humane Gardener and Wildscape for a live online webinar called Who's Nibbling in Your Garden? Coexisting with deer and other mammals. Nancy is one of the most knowledgeable and respected voices when it comes to understanding the why behind the wildlife behavior and she's sharing practical science-based ways to protect your plants without harming the animals or the ecosystem that supports them. It's a 90 minute session packed with insight solutions and a new way of looking at your garden through an ecological lens. Plus there'll be time for live Q&A at the end plus you'll get access to the replay and extra resources afterwards. Tickets are just $30 for this event, so consider joining a space is limited, but together let's learn how to take that frustration into understanding and grow a garden that works with nature, not against it. Just head to JoeGardener.com slash deer to register. That's JoeGardener.com slash deer and I hope to see you there. And that's going to be a wrap for today. Thanks as always to Amy Prentice, Brendan O'Reilly and Christine Lafond and thank you for joining me today. My goal for every episode is to help you take the guesswork out of gardening by teaching you the why do behind the how to so that you can become a better, smarter, more confident gardener. I'll be back here again next Thursday for another episode of the Joe Gardener Show and I look forward to having you right back here to join me for that. Until then, have a great week, take care and I'll see you back here really soon. Thanks for listening to the Joe Gardener Show, the podcast where it's all about gardening and learning to grow like a pro, no experience required. For more information, podcasts and how to videos, visit us online at JoeGardener.com.