Down the Garden Path 2017

Landscape care strategies have certainly changed since it has gotten dry and hot, and now we have gotten scattered rain events giving water to some and not others. We are seeing the end of the spring bulbs with foliage yellowing and drying down, which is accelerated by the hot dry conditions. The...

We have all made them – kept some, unsuccessful with others. New Year's resolutions can be tricky, but for your gardens, they may be a little easier to keep. For starters, they are months away and can be more thought out and with time to prepare, more easily accomplished. Here are a few Garden...

Once the fall school term approaches, many home gardeners give up on the vegetable garden as other activities and projects seem to need more attention. Vegetable gardens can provide fresh produce well into October and maybe even early November depending, on what is grown. As the growing season...

About now, gardeners are beginning to get the annual itch. Catalogs can keep the urge down, but eventually it comes back, growing stronger and stronger – that absolute need to get your hands dirty. To satisfy the craving, we can do some gardening activities inside right now. If you start your own...

This is that warning shot over the bow of the ship or in this case the holiday bow. Homemakers are in full swing, baking our favorite cookies and other holiday treats we enjoy so much. With all that baking, comes the potential for pantry pests to show up. Leftover baking goods are usually the...

This column has frequently addressed the need to water new plantings, transplanted trees, shrubs and evergreens added to the landscape. Little has been written regarding water management on what we would all call our "well-established" landscape plants in the yard. Most of us give little thought...

As our good summer weather begins to wind down, it is time to get our vacationing houseplants ready to return inside for the winter. A few decisions can be made to save us some time. For many, we take them outside to let Mother Nature nurture them back to a better state of health, knowing that once...

We store our summer bulbs because they are not winter hardy compared to our spring bulbs, which generally are planted in the late summer and fall months so they will bloom for us the following spring. these are also different from those late summer to fall bulbs that also are hardy. Summer bulbs...

Extension has gotten some very seasonal questions arriving at the Master Gardener Help Desk this past week. The phone and email logs seem to suggest we are a lot closer to spring than some long-range weather forecasts, which mention snow in early to mid-April! Here are a few of our frequently asked...

Back in December, this column talked about doing our best to prevent an outbreak of any one of several kinds of pantry pests in the home. Some of what was shared included sealing bulk amounts of dry pet foods, including the birdseed used all winter for outdoor feathered friends, and limiting,...

Poison ivy has been around forever and may have behaved itself by staying out of our yards and groundcover beds…until now. Every time there is a situation that affects our landscapes, likely a corresponding condition is favoring nature. For example, if you don't mow the lawn for a season, you get...