Now that the snow is gone and gardeners have left the warm comfort of the house, the impacts of the winter are very evident as we do that "walk about" in the yard and begin to formulate early spring gardening plans. Master Gardeners have begun answering questions coming in on the phone, by email...

Plants have had quite a time dealing with the very cold weather and blustery winter winds. The lucky ones are currently under the snow and well protected. Soil temperatures remain constant and while covered by the snow, temperatures around the stems, twigs, foliage or buds are protected from the...

Successive plantings in the vegetable garden can still be done when home gardeners pick the right vegetables. Late summer into early fall is a great time to make additional plantings of those vegetables that we consume as the whole plant. Mustard greens, a variety of the leaf lettuces, and spinach...

We are having prime time weather right now for the family lawn. Our lawns, known for being nearly completely cool season grasses, continue to grow vigorously. Nearly because one of our pesky warm season perennial grasses is Nimblewill. You will see it as patchy spots in the lawn already going...

Farmers walk their fields, vegetable growers walk their produce fields, have you walked your lawn lately? This time of year is a good time to find out what has been happening to the lawn and what you might want to do yet this season to make your lawn healthier. With all the rain we had earlier in...

This summer has been exceptional for magnolia scale. Master Gardeners at the help desks have constantly been addressing this situation with homeowners for the last 5+ weeks. A typical life cycle of a scale is an overwintering female producing eggs under her protective scale covering. The eggs will...

Reports have been scattered, but throughout Cook and DuPage counties, homeowner's have discovered unfamiliar insects feeding on their viburnums in the landscape. This turns out to be yet another pest from a foreign land, the Viburnum Leaf Beetle. Like many of the insects that are not native to the...

This season gardeners have been seeing lots of lumps, bumps and blobs on different kinds of leaves throughout the landscape, in parks and the forest preserves. It is not uncommon as this occurs annually, what is uncommon is the generous number of these growths we are seeing. These are generally...

Our recent winter weather patterns have caused concern from homeowners especially with our last snow storm. That snow came down quickly and was able to stick to and add a lot of weight to tree canopies and evergreen branches alike. Unless there is a compelling reason to remove the snow loads, like...

Holiday gift plants are always appreciated when given this time of year. The more traditional plants in the past have included Poinsettia, Christmas cactus and Azalea. There are others that are also given like Ornamental Pepper and Cherry, Amaryllis bulbs, Cyclamen and Kalanchoe. All the holiday...

Home vegetable and fruit gardening have become much more than an outdoor activity that is "trending", but a very strong "movement" these days. Planning for a home orchard will take a bit more planning than we typically do for the annual vegetable garden. Fruit trees are more of a long term...

Summer vacation is just about over for our houseplants that we set out last spring and now the decision needs to be made of what comes back in the home for the winter. We generally consider any plant that cannot survive being outside a houseplant since many of them have a tropical background or are...

Down the Garden Path Perennial beds are just now waking up from the winter and some of the first plants up are the spring bulbs and a few early bloomers like bleeding hearts if the rabbits leave them alone. Rabbits will feed on the tender tops of most perennial plants in our beds while more of...

Vegetables can still be productive for a couple more months depending on what crops you have been growing. Certainly long season crops like tomatoes, peppers, Swiss chard are there now and will continue to produce till frost for the tender vegetables and Chard will tolerate quite a bit of cool or...

All our recent rain and cooler night and daytime temperatures have given homeowners a surprise in the yard in the form of a variety of mushrooms growing in unexpected places. Nationally, there are about 10,000 known species of mushrooms. Mushrooms are the "fruiting" structure of the fungus below...

Our rains have really been messing with us when it comes to routine yard work. Keeping the weeds under control is a real challenge right now. Every day we are not able to work in the beds, those weeds keep right on growing. Gardeners with smaller garden beds can lean in while staying on the lawn...

Late summer and early fall are great times to work on the lawn. One of the best practices that will benefit the lawn long term is core aeration. Homeowners can rent the coring machine or have a lawn service provide the service for your yard. A coring machine will remove a plug (core) containing a...

Our recent strong winds got our attention as damage to our deciduous and evergreen trees became a real issue. If we were lucky those downed limbs and trees missed our homes and cars. Trees that were already compromised were the first to be damaged. Trees with narrow crotch angles, poor root systems...

While there is a lot of summer left, now is the time homeowners are discovering nests of a variety of flying, swarming and potentially stinging wasps and hornets in the home landscaping. In nearly all cases, homeowners have been unaware that a nest even exists in the yard until one day when foliage...

January begins the annual flight of vegetable, flower and fruit tree catalogs to your mailbox. Depending on your level of gardening, the catalogs arrive frequently and in mass. It used to be you would get either a vegetable catalog or a fruit catalog or flower catalog. Many catalogs now contain...