Over the Garden Fence 2017

Good Gardening Questions

As our gardening season is winding down, questions to the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener volunteers have been mixed, and they have been really good questions to share with others: Q: My white pine is losing many needles on the inside, is that normal? A...
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Where has all the water gone?

This column has frequently addressed the need to water new plantings, transplanted trees, shrubs and evergreens added to the landscape. Little has been written regarding water management on what we would all call our "well-established" landscape plants in the yard. Most of us give little thought...
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It's official, the weather will continue to be weird

Late last week, several weather-related organizations put out a release entitled "Major Cold and Wet Spring Event: Potential Impacts in the North Central U.S. April 26 –May 9, 2017." The story comes from the National Weather Service in partnership with NOAA, USDA Midwest Climate Hub, USDA...
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The ABCs of a Garden Catalog

Garden catalogs begin to show up in early January and will continue for the next few weeks. Each picture looks better than the next and promises to be bigger or better than last year. Those photos and headlines are exciting, but as you pour over the pages, it is helpful to know how to decipher the...
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Bugs, Diseases and Weeds in the Landscape

So many problems this year have been weather related. One grass-like weed that has shown up in the lawn, flower and garden beds is yellow nutsedge. Grass-like because it is actually a sedge. It is yellow-green in color and, if left to mature, produces "nutlets" in the soil to grow from in the...
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Warmer Weather and Ants

There are some 8,000 ant species around, and on occasion, ants can become an annoyance in the home. Most often they are a bother in the spring of the year when soils outdoors begin to warm again. Right now, in this particular December, our soils next to the home are still warm. We may be bothered...
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Gypsy Moth Numbers Rise and IDOA Changes Strategies

Over the past weekend, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) posted a news release with changes for this summer on their tactics for managing Gypsy Moths in parts of Kane, Kendall, Will and LaSalle counties. In past years, the public's involvement has been passive in the sense that IDOA...
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Winterizing Your Home Orchard

Now is the time to spend some time with your fruit trees before the season shuts us out. A few actions now can help prevent problems later. Rodent damage to the trunk at the soil line happens when grass grows tall next to the trunk. Remove the grass and weeds using hand clippers, not the string...
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2018 Gardening Resolutions

We have all made them, kept some, unsuccessful with others. New Year's resolutions for your gardens are a little easier to keep. For starters, they are months away and can be more thought out and with time to prepare, more easily accomplished. Here a few to consider: Add more mulch where it can...
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Fall Soil Testing

When was the last time you had your garden or landscape bed soil tested? If you have never had a soil test done, this first time serves as a baseline for any future testing comparisons and lets you know as soon as the results come back if there are actions to be taken. This fall, before the snow...
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Drought to Drowning

Our latest weather pattern is making outdoor fall clean up more difficult than usual. It always can seem overwhelming, but even more so this year thanks to several long rain events. For example, just keeping up (again) with the flush of the lawn has been hard, but add in finding a time when the...
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Viburnum Leaf Beetle Returns

This column has talked about how different plants, insects and diseases have developed based on our unseasonal temperatures and rainfall. Last year, I reported on the Viburnum Leaf Beetle larvae feeding towards the end of June. Our accumulation of growing-degree days being so far ahead, the larvae...
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