Most Knockout roses in our area have bounced back from the winter kill by resprouting from the base causing the plants to be smaller and more compact this year. However few, some in our area had to be replanted the one’s that didn’t had a little help from Mother Nature with their garden pruning...
Bagworms will have hatched in southern Illinois. They should hatch by mid-June in central Illinois. When newly hatched bagworms emerge from their mother's bag, they climb to the top of shrubs, trees, and any other erect object. They spin out two to three feet of silk which catches in the wind...
Take container gardening to the next level by utilizing bulbs for stunning summer displays. Summer flowering bulbs can bear some of the most beautiful blooms or striking foliage, adding surprise pops of interest to your porch or outdoor garden. This gardening adventure can be very cost-...
There are three sawfly species that commonly attack azaleas, two in the spring and one in the summer. We are apparently currently seeing Amauronematus azaleae. There is one generation per year with the adults emerging to lay eggs on expanding leaves in the spring. The larvae are feeding...
Hydrangea leaftier, Olethreutes ferriferana, has been noticeable in central Illinois and is present in other areas of the state. Damage appears as two to four cupped leaves tied together with silk at the end of a branch. An attacked plant will typically have ten to twenty of these...
Last spring, Joel Karsten wrote a book called "Straw Bale Gardens" that has taken the gardening world by storm and given growers a new media to grow vegetables, herbs and annuals. The science behind the decomposition of the straw bale is what makes it the ideal growing media for vegetables....
Mesclun is a mixture of assorted small, baby salad leaves also known as a mesclun mix. You can purchase mesclun bagged in cellophane at your grocer. Yet freshly harvested from a few square feet in your patio, garden, or front stoop, mesclun is an easy tender treat, said a University of Illinois...
If Johnny Appleseed were planting apples in 2014, he would be planting dwarf or semi-dwarf trees grafted onto disease-resistant rootstocks instead of apple seeds from a leather satchel. Grafting is like plant surgery for horticulturists, connecting the growing tissues of one plant to another....
May bring us our fifth gardening trend for 2014: Bee-neficials: It's all about the bees this year. News on bee and other pollinator populations is everywhere this spring. Obviously, pollinators are an essential requirement for many of our favorite food crops. Pollination is a process that takes...
Crayfish become a nuisance in turfgrass when they burrow in high moisture soil, creating chimneys at the burrow openings. These chimneys, made of balls of clay soil that bake in the sun, become very hard. Hitting them with a mower dulls the blades and may even kill the mower's engine. The crayfish...
