Rabbit damage
In a typical year, this column in the middle of December would focus on how to deal with wildlife damaging valuable landscape plants. This year, the ground is clear, and lawns are still green. While the weather remains favorable, rabbits will feed on the diversity of plant material...
Part of holiday tree history
Decorating evergreen trees at Christmas is an old German custom that originated in the region along the upper Rhine River. The Christmas tree was first brought to America by Hessian troops during the Revolutionary War and, another early account tells of American...
Seasonally, questions to Extension though phone calls, visits to the office, and via email naturally slow down. It has consistently been colder so virtually all outside activities are done for the season. We do get some late season questions and the start of winter indoor related questions coming...
By now, most of the outdoor gardening to-do list is completed, or nearly so. However, there are always things to continue or to help us prepare spring....
We winterize everything else, why not the home orchard? Now is the time to prevent problems later by spending some quality time with your fruit trees.
Rodent damage to the trunk at the soil line happens when grass is left to grow tall next to the trunk. Remove the grass and weeds using hand...
November gardening in the home landscape is always a mixed bag of tasks (and weather). Some jobs are timely and appropriate, and others we may just need to catch up with. Here’s a few to make sure are on your to-do list:
Vegetable gardens
We have had some pretty cool weather, so end-of-season...
Caterpillars are frequently collected by students for science classes, or by parents to show their little ones the amazing change from caterpillar to butterfly or moth. You may have done this before with a...
In 2021, both the consumer and retail sides of gardening have seen unique challenges due to the pandemic. Since spring 2020, garden centers saw a huge and unexpected increase in demand for seeds, plants of all kinds, and all the associated supplies used in home landscape.
This caught all of...
Are we still in droughty conditions here in northern Illinois? As of October 5 – the day before we started to get all the rain – we sure were. Are we good now? We are better off, but not “out of the woods.”
The rains we got were most welcome, yet the drought monitoring sites still show DuPage,...
