If you are wondering if the hot weather is impacting the home landscape and gardens, the simple answer is, it sure is. With the high daytime temperatures and above normal night time temperatures, it is becoming increasing hard for plants to keep up with the natural moisture loss from foliage. Every...
In the past couple of weeks some of our large shade trees have signs of chlorosis showing up. The leaves are not the medium and deep green they are normally and can have darker veins that fade out into the surrounding leaf tissue.
Chlorosis is most of often caused by a nutrient deficiency, not...
For a Horticulturist, this month has not visually been a good one. Sure there has been abundant and beautiful flowers from annuals and perennials and the spring bloom from our ornamental shrubs and trees was spectacular. What I am writing about this week is the visual decline out in the landscape,...
To control or not to control, that is the question. There are two grubs that historically have caused us to ponder the control question, our native Masked Chafer (White Grub) and our not so native Japanese Beetle. The Masked Chafer will lay eggs in the latter half of July in the northern parts if...
Questions coming in over the phone, via email and with residents visiting the Master Gardener Help Desks is really an easy way to see any developing trends in the home landscape. Some weeks' it is all about insects, other weeks' plant diseases. Here are few from the past few days.
Can I...
About this time of year gardeners are wondering why some of the flower beds are looking good and others never seemed to really take off and fill in.
Garden soils can make such a difference in how quickly flowers will cover the bed. With all the rain we had earlier, poor drainage is often at the "...
Since the drought of 2012, Austrian pines have been stressed, especially older trees. Austrian Pines are not native to Illinois, coming from western Europe into Asia, including Austria for which the tree is named. While tolerant of our weather pattern when young and growing well, Austrian Pine...
Insects are very interesting to watch as they go about their lives in nature from early spring through Fall. We notice them when something goes wrong or missing on our valuable landscape plants and flowers, especially when those insects are considered detrimental to growing our prized flowers or...
Nearly all our spring blooming plants have finished now and are in the process of putting their energy into storage if a bulb. Next year's flowers depend on the plants ability to continue to produce food reserves until they naturally die down. The very early spring bulbs have already disappeared...
Last year gardeners were caught off guard with outbreaks of scale insects on their trees and shrubs. University of Illinois Master Gardeners received many calls of Magnolia foliage turning black and sticky residue on lawn furniture, yard ornaments and if you stood there for even a minute, all over...
