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...
Here we are at the end of May and maybe the beds in the backyard look ok or maybe not. We love our lawns, yet grass can move into our landscape beds in a stealth like manner, while we are waiting for better weather for bed weeding and edging.
Putting a strong clean line on the landscape beds...
This column has not addressed vegetables for a while and now is the time to consider the next round of transplants or seeds to go in the garden. It wasn't but about 7-10 days ago the weather was threatening a frosty night which would have us out covering up tender perennials and some of our...
This column has covered growing degree days, chilling hours, planting based on our average frost free date and growing season extender methods. One more to add to the list when it comes to insect infestations on our favorite plants is something called Phenology. What a plant looks like and...
Gardeners whisper about it hoping there is some truth to what your parents told you about when to plant your vegetables. Others will devise their own way to determine when it is safe to plant in their yards. In other cases the gardener will join the gardener's anonymous club, being a real gambler...
