Over the Garden Fence 2015

Farmers walk their fields, vegetable growers walk their produce fields, have you walked your lawn lately? This time of year is a good time to find out what has been happening to the lawn and what you might want to do yet this season to make your lawn healthier. With all the rain we had earlier in...

This summer has been exceptional for magnolia scale. Master Gardeners at the help desks have constantly been addressing this situation with homeowners for the last 5+ weeks. A typical life cycle of a scale is an overwintering female producing eggs under her protective scale covering. The eggs will...

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...

This season gardeners have been seeing lots of lumps, bumps and blobs on different kinds of leaves throughout the landscape, in parks and the forest preserves. It is not uncommon as this occurs annually, what is uncommon is the generous number of these growths we are seeing. These are generally...

Our recent winter weather patterns have caused concern from homeowners especially with our last snow storm. That snow came down quickly and was able to stick to and add a lot of weight to tree canopies and evergreen branches alike. Unless there is a compelling reason to remove the snow loads, like...