There are a great many beneficial insects in the home landscape that can help gardeners manage destructive insect populations without ever opening the pesticide cabinet. Common to the yard are insect predators, parasitic wasps and natural pathogens that all work to our advantage. Some insects...
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...
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...
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...
Rain is always a good thing, most of the time, for our landscape and gardens. Right now all the rain has brought us all the weeds we can ever imagine in every bed we have. Ignore those weeds and let them flower and set seeds and the landscape begins to look like a jungle of green really quickly....
The University of Illinois offers the Illinois Vegetable Gardening Guide (https://web.extension.illinois.edu/vegguide/default.cfm) on line and contains several sections on growing high quality wholesome vegetables. There
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The Extension Office and Master Gardener Help desks receive lots of questions regarding invasive and noxious weeds every year. There are major differences in how these weeds and plants are managed from the already existing regulatory legislation in Illinois. In a recent newsletter from the...
Our growing season has really gotten going finally and with all the good comes some bad from time to time. Gardeners have become much more aware of what we do in our individual home landscapes have a larger impact on the environment especially when you add up the amount of land in our neighborhoods...
Lawns have been turning green since the rains have shown up and some lawns have already been mowed for the first time. The south and west exposures may need to be mowed before the rest of the yard. As you get ready to mow for the first time in your yard, be sure the mower deck is clear of any grass...
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...
