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...
This spring has seemingly brought out the worst in some of our lawn weeds. Creeping Charlie, also called Ground Ivy has been the number one complaint I have had this spring while talking lawn care with homeowners and garden club members.
Creeping Charlie quietly grew well into the fall of 2015...
Extension offices routinely get phone calls after a fruit tree has been planted that second or third year in the home orchard or landscape about what is going on, "Why don't I get any fruit?". Often times what is happening is natural, sometimes we contribute to the delay of fruit production by the...
Every season brings new surprises to homeowners. Spring is no exception to this. Finding out the 300 spring bulbs you planted last fall are actually white, not the yellow the plant label said they were. Less enjoyable surprises would be finding out the young trees you planted to replace the Ash...
Lawns are really greening up nicely over the last couple of weeks courtesy of Mother Nature. Lawns will naturally green up in the spring anyway, yet the rains and warmer temperatures really help too. Questions to the Extension offices and the Master Gardener Help Desks have been all about lawns and...
